Congress

Health stakeholders are praising Senate and House appropriators for permanently repealing the so-called “Cadillac” health insurance and medical device taxes in the end-of-year spending package released Monday (Dec. 16), following years of lobbying to get rid of the industry taxes Congress had passed to offset the coverage expansion in the Affordable Care Act.

The year-end spending deal released Monday (Dec. 16) includes industry-sought exemptions from Medicare competitive bidding for manual complex rehab technology wheelchairs and the accessories, but other durable medical equipment stakeholder priorities, like exempting non-invasive ventilators from competitive bidding, were not included in the package.

FDA scored a $91 million increase in the year-long fiscal 2020 funding deal hammered out by congressional appropriators Monday (Dec. 16).

Congress is slated to fully repeal three controversial health care taxes after congressional leaders agreed to include the repeals in an end-of-year spending package, sources familiar with the talks say.

Key senators are aiming to get their bill that would ban non-tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes from the market into a year-end spending deal expected to be released soon.

A group of Republican senators, led by Commerce Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS), is pushing Senate health committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to change his committee’s surprise billing policy for air ambulances to one based solely on arbitration while states collect more data on payment rates.

Negotiations for the delay or repeal of several health care-related taxes are still underway after Senate and House appropriations leaders reached a tentative funding deal that will carry the federal government through fiscal 2020, a lobbyist closely tracking the taxes tells Inside Health Policy.

The House Ways & Means Committee’s 11th hour surprise billing proposal has lawmakers who spent the past year working on surprise billing scratching their heads, while providers are jumping to support the legislation that could delay consideration of surprise billing until 2020.

House Ways & Means Committee leaders released a bipartisan agreement to end surprise medical bills and said they want Congress to take up the issue in 2020 rather than rush to pass a policy by year’s end.