Evan McMorris-Santoro March 23, 2011, 12:02 PM

As Congress has battled its way through the short-term spending bills keeping the government open for the past couple months, a looming battle has faded from the spotlight. But this morning, on a conference call marking the first anniversary of the health care reform law, one prominent Republican reminded everyone that the debt ceiling fight is coming, and he suggested that it will be bitter.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), chair of the House Republican Policy Committee and the fifth-ranking Republican in the House leadership, told reporters today that the fight to eliminate funding for implementation of the health care reform law will spill over into the debt ceiling fight.

“Our budget I think will once again define a strong support for non-funding of the legislation,” Price said. “It is a work in progress, and my suspicion is the debt ceiling may include the same kind of legislation.”

During the short-term spending fight, conservatives have tried to attach measures to gut the spending required to implement the health care reform law, but so far they have been unsuccessful. The long-term spending bill passed by the House does includes a defunding of reform implementation, and Price said the next budget will do the same thing.

So far, short-term spending bills have prevented the government from shutting down, while keeping a brawl over health care implementation funds off the front burner. Price’s suggestion that Republicans will use the debt ceiling as leverage to force the defunding of reform implementation will likely make the conservatives who want to talk about implementation happy, but it also makes the possibility of a shutdown more likely.

Defunding health care, Health Care, Tom Price