First Edition: March 13, 2015

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Officials Pressed To Let Pregnant Women Enroll In Health-Law Plans At Any Time
The Obama administration is under increasing pressure to allow uninsured women who become pregnant to obtain health coverage at any time of the year through the Affordable Care Act’s federal exchange. More than 50 House Democrats delivered a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell calling for immediate guidance that would classify pregnancy as a “qualifying life event.” ... More than 30 national health advocacy groups, including Families USA and Planned Parenthood, sent their own letter Thursday to HHS supporting the change. (Armour, 3/12)

Politico: Hill Republicans Playing It Safe On Deficit Reduction
The House and Senate Budget Committees won’t roll out their tax and spending plans until next week. But all indications are the savings target for reconciliation won’t come close to the trillions needed to reach balance by 2025. Part of this is practical politics given President Barack Obama’s veto. But in a surprising twist, a lot also has to do with new, lower cost estimates for the law the GOP loves to hate: the Affordable Care Act. Just this past Monday, the Congressional Budget Office trimmed $209 billion from its prior January estimate for the 10-year cost of subsidies and related spending and revenues for the health exchanges. That’s a 20 percent drop in the space of two months, and those are the same exchange subsidies threatened by a Republican-backed lawsuit before the Supreme Court. If the justices were to strike down the subsidies this summer, Republicans would be under pressure to come up with some relief for the millions who would find it harder to keep their health coverage. (Rogers, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Republicans’ Budget Targets Medicaid, Food Stamps
The Senate Republican budget slated for release next week is expected to generate savings by turning more responsibility for Medicaid and food-stamp programs over to states, GOP lawmakers and aides said Thursday. ... Under the current system, Medicaid programs are administered by the states, but an average of 57% of their budgets come from federal funds, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. Republicans have proposed similar moves in the past, but have encountered Democratic resistance. ... To get a sense of potential savings, under last year’s House GOP budget, converting the food-stamp programs into a block grant starting in 2019 would have saved $125 billion over 10 years. The document also estimated that overhauling Medicaid would trim $732 billion over a decade. (Peterson, 3/12)

The Associated Press: US Budget Deficit Totals $192.3 Billion In February
The federal government ran a slightly smaller deficit in February than a year ago but the imbalance through the first five months of the budget year is still running ahead of last year. ... But Republicans, who now control both the House and the Senate, have attacked Obama’s plan for raising taxes and failing to tackle rising costs for the government’s biggest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare. GOP lawmakers have pledged that the budgets they put together in coming weeks will eliminate deficits over the next decade. (3/12)

Politico: How Abortion Politics Scuttled A Human-Trafficking Bill
It’s a cause any politician would have a hard time opposing: cracking down on human trafficking. Instead, in a breakdown sensational even by Senate standards, a bill to address the issue is set to go down in a partisan firefight. The cause of the row? Democrats didn’t read the 68-page bill to discover its provisions dealing with abortion, and Republicans didn’t disclose the abortion language when Democratic staffers asked them for a summary of the legislation. (Everett and Kim, 3/12)

The Associated Press: Obama To Visit VA Hospital, Check Progress On Veterans Care
President Barack Obama is making a first-time visit to the Arizona veterans' hospital that triggered a national examination into how the government cares for its former service members to get an appraisal on the health system's progress and its lingering needs. Obama will travel to Phoenix on Friday to draw attention to the Veterans Affairs Department response to widespread mismanagement where VA workers falsified waiting lists to conceal chronic delays in care. (3/13)

USA Today: VA Secretary Presses For Veterans' Care Reform
On the eve of a presidential visit to the Phoenix VA hospital, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald stressed that reforming his massive federal agency is a process with two key elements: leadership and time. "What we're doing is changing a system," McDonald said Thursday after meeting with student veterans at Arizona State University's Tempe campus. "And we're telling them we want them to help do that. ... We're not where we want to be." (Wagner, 3/13)

The Washington Post: VA Manager Helped Pick Relative’s Property For New Medical Center
Department of Veterans Affairs manager Wendy Gillis seemed to understand the trouble with serving on a selection committee that was considering five of her family’s properties for a new VA medical center in Fayetteville, N.C. “I don’t think I need to be here … Oh my god, I shouldn’t be here,” a VA official remembered her saying during a 2010 evaluation of one relative’s plot. (Hicks, 3/13)

USA Today: Policing Mentally Ill Overshadowed By Race Debate
Deep in a White House examination of policing tactics is a recommendation that left unaddressed, officials say, will contribute to continued fractures in law enforcement's relationship with the public, similar to the racial divide.The report by the Task Force on 21st Century Policing urged authorities to offer training to deal with a disturbing number of violent encounters between police and the mentally ill. And, the panel concluded, Congress should pay for it. (Johnson, 3/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Study Supports Raising Tobacco-Purchase Age To 21
Only Congress, which required that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration commission the report, has the power to increase the tobacco purchase age nationally. States and cities can raise the age in their jurisdictions. The report by a panel at the independent Institute of Medicine examined the impact of increasing the age to 19 on teenagers. The committee also looked at how raising the age to 21 would affect 18- to 20-year-olds, and how boosting it to 25 would affect 21- to 25-year-olds. (Mickle, 3/12)

The Associated Press: Report: Raising Legal Age For Tobacco Would Stop, Delay Use
Raising the legal age to buy tobacco to higher than 18 would likely prevent premature death for hundreds of thousands of people, according to a report issued Thursday by the Institute of Medicine. The report examines the public health effects of increasing the age to 19, 21 or 25. While it doesn't make any recommendations, officials say, it provides the scientific guidance state and local governments need to evaluate policies aimed at reducing tobacco use by young people. (3/13)

Los Angeles Times: Experts Call For 'Tobacco-Free World' And Raising Legal Age For Cigarettes
Among a generation of kids ranging from today's 15-year-olds to babies only now being contemplated, shifting the minimum legal age for tobacco purchases from 18 to 21 across the United States now would prevent a quarter-million premature deaths, says a new report. For children born between 2000 and 2019, such a policy shift would reclaim a projected 4.2 million years of life now expected to be lost to tobacco-related illnesses, an Institute of Medicine analysis concludes. And down the road even further, boosting to 21 the minimum age for those buying cigarettes would save 4,000 babies whose lives would otherwise be claimed by sudden infant death syndrome. (Healy, 3/12)

USA Today: Raising Tobacco Age Would Save Lives, Report Says
About 95% of smokers pick up the habit before 21, studies show. Raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 would make it harder for teens to pass for legal age or get cigarettes from their older high school friends, says Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "With 2,800 youth trying their first cigarette every day and many using multiple tobacco products, powerful interventions are needed to keep youth from lifelong addictions to these deadly products," says Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. (Szabo, 3/12)

The Associated Press: NY Regulator To Push Alternative Health Care Payments
New York's top insurance regulator says most health insurance in the state pays hospitals and doctors for each service regardless of quality, efficiency or outcome, and his staff will try to encourage alternatives to reduce costs and improve health. Department of Financial Services Superintendent Ben Lawsky says their recent survey shows every major insurer in New York's commercial market is making some effort at payment reform, like "pay-for-performance" or pay-per-member fees for health care. (3/13)

The Associated Press: Comptroller: New York State Medicaid Spending To Rise
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says state spending on Medicaid is projected to rise by nearly $700 million a year over the next four years. However, DiNapoli said Thursday that the state's efforts to limit Medicaid spending are showing signs of progress with annual growth at less than 2 percent. The growth rate had previously been more than 5 percent annually. (3/13)