Twelve Senate Republicans want to block any federal budget that includes money for the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s landmark legislation.
The senators are working on a new budget that would keep the federal government functioning beyond September 30.
Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas are leading the movement. Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, does not agree with this tactic.
"I think it's the dumbest idea I've ever heard of," Burr told the Associated Press , Huffington Post reports. "Listen, as long as Barack Obama is president, the Affordable Care Act is going to be law."
Burr remembers how Republicans faced a major backlash from the American public after the government temporarily shut down in 1995.
"The Obama Administration's recent decision to delay Obamacare's employer mandate and eligibility verification for the individual exchanges is further proof the law is a failure that will inevitably hurt businesses, American families, and the economy," Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah told US News & World Report . "I call on all Americans who oppose the unfair implementation of the president's health care law to join us in the effort to fund the government, but not Obamcare. If the president can't follow his law, then the American people shouldn't fund it."
Republicans appear to be fighting among themselves about the best way to proceed.
"We need to be careful in the way we treat each other," McCain told CBS News . "I have been as ferocious a fighter and, I think, as partisan, as strong, as anybody. But I really try hard not to get personal. Debate on the issue as hard as you can, but don't say that your opponents, people who disagree with you, are scared."