WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led United States House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate are expected to approve on Wednesday a bipartisan deal to raise the debt limit and end the federal shutdown, clearing the way for President Barack Obama to sign it into law, congressional aides said.

The aides said the President is expected to get the measure hours before the United States hits its borrowing authority at midnight, local time on Wednesday.

The White House on Wednesday defended the inclusion of a change to Mr Obama's health-care law in the proposed Senate budget deal as a modest adjustment, rather than a concession that the administration was making to prevent a debt default.

"The income verification provision... was negotiated by Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans and is a modest adjustment to the existing Affordable Care Act law," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a briefing.

"We've always said we were willing to make improvements and adjustments to the law," he added. "Ransom would be a wholly different thing."