The House will vote as early as Thursday on a measure to temporarily extend government funding until Feb. 16 and to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program for six years.
The legislation, at this point, will not include immigration reform language or a provision to protect so-called "Dreamers" from being deported.
Republican leaders informed rank-and-file lawmakers at a meeting late Tuesday.
The legislation includes a few "sweeteners" aimed at drawing in GOP and Democratic votes, although it's unlikely to win much Democratic support.
It would also delay by two years a tax on medical devices and a tax on high-cost health plans. Another tax on Obamacare insurers would be delayed for one year.
All of the taxes were created to help fund Obamacare. The medical device tax was delayed in 2015 for two years but went back into effect on Jan. 1, as did a tax on Obamacare health insurers.
The tax on high-cost health plans, often called the “Cadillac” tax, has never gone into effect and is delayed until 2020.
The measure also includes a provision that allows the Department of Defense to provide funding for “Missile Defeat and Defense Enhancements” activities.
Republicans leaving the meeting said they are generally in favor of voting for the stopgap measure, even though it will mark the fourth time in fiscal 2018 a short-term bill has been passed to keep the government open.
Republican leaders told lawmakers talks continue with Democrats on a deal to trade protection for Dreamers, illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, for new border security initiatives, including a southern border wall.
Republicans and Democrats are also negotiating how to raise federal spending caps.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, warned Tuesday that members of his group may not back the measure, which could jeopardize House passage since few if any Democrats are likely to vote for it.
Republicans are frustrated with the repeated need for short-term bills that never achieve the larger deal on immigration and spending.
"At this point, we need to go ahead and figure out what we are going to do on immigration," Meadows said. "Let's do that this week."
Meadows and other conservatives support legislation authored by Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, that calls for significant improvements in border security and immigration enforcement.
But Republican leaders have not scheduled a vote on the bill, and it's not clear if it will ever reach the floor. A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Tuesday introduced their own legislation to protect Dreamers and implement border security.
The Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, expired on Sept. 30, but states have kept themselves afloat with funding leftover from prior years. States receive matching federal funds to provide health insurance to children from low-income families.
The House passed a five-year reauthorization back in November, but it went nowhere in the Senate due to objections on how to pay for it. The GOP included funding offsets such as charging wealthy seniors higher Medicare premiums and raiding an Obamacare disease prevention fund.
However, an estimate last week from the Congressional Budget Office found that extending CHIP for 10 years would actually save the federal government $6 billion. The savings would come from a lower matching rate for federal funding that goes into effect in 2021 and fewer families signing their children up for CHIP because Obamacare’s requirement for everyone to get health insurance was repealed.
