A few hours into the shutdown, Republicans in the House appointed delegates, or conferees, to negotiate with the Senate later on a spending plan to get the government up and running again.
But if they still want to tinker with Obamacare, the Senate will not negotiate, an aide to Reid said.
Obama, heralding the first government shutdown since 1996, told US troops in a video message that they deserved better from Congress, and promised to reopen the government soon.
Obama earlier accused Republicans of holding America for ransom with their “extreme” political demands, while his opponents struck back at his party’s supposed arrogance.
Republicans accuse Obama of refusing to negotiate in good faith, but the White House says Obamacare is the law and there is no way to stop it from going into force and providing affordable health care.
The crisis is rooted in the Tea Party campaign to overturn Obamacare, the president’s principal domestic political achievement, key portions of which came into force on Tuesday.
More broadly, the shutdown is the most serious crisis yet in a series of rolling ideological skirmishes between Democrat Obama and House Republicans over the scope of the US government.
“One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to re-fight the results of an election,” Obama said.
Obama warned that a government shutdown could badly damage an economy which has endured a sluggish recovery from the worst recession in decades.
Consultants Macroeconomic Advisors said it would slow growth, recorded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the second quarter.
A two-week shutdown would cut 0.3 percentage point off of gross domestic production.
Republicans are also demanding Obama make concessions in the health care law to secure a lifting of the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling, without which the United States would begin to default on its debts for the first time in history by the middle of October.
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