First Edition: May 6, 2015

The New York Times: Senate Passes Cost-Cutting Budget Plan
The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to the first joint congressional budget plan in six years, ratifying a 10-year blueprint that would cut spending by $5.3 trillion, overhaul programs for the poor, repeal President Obama’s health care law and ostensibly produce a balanced budget in less than a decade. (Weisman, 5/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Passes Budget Agreement
The budget’s passage also unlocks an important procedural tool known as reconciliation, which allows legislation to pass both chambers with a simple majority vote. ... Republican lawmakers say they hope to use that tool to repeal parts of Mr. Obama’s health-care law. Congress could use reconciliation, for example, to respond to any fallout from a challenge before the Supreme Court over how the law was established. The court’s ruling, expected next month, could upend the health-care law if the justices side with the plaintiffs. Mr. Obama is almost certain to veto any such measure by Congress. (Timiraos, 5/5)

The Washington Post: Senate Passes Budget Even As Impasse On Spending Continues
Senate Republicans celebrated on Tuesday after passing the first joint budget resolution in more than five years, but that success is just the start of the much more difficult task of funding the government. ... Democrats vowed to block deep funding cuts for medical research, food stamps, housing programs for low-income workers and the federal Pell Grant program for students. (Snell, 5/5)

USA Today: Senate Passes GOP Budget
The ten-year plan achieves balance with steep cuts in domestic spending while protecting defense spending and raising no new taxes. ... Democrats said the Republican budget would give tax breaks to the wealthy while stripping millions of Americans of health insurance, cutting federal tuition grants for college students, and slashing Medicaid and food stamp programs for the poor. (Davis and Kelly, 5/5)

Politico: Republicans Finally Get Their Budget
Still, passing a budget lays out Republican priorities: cutting Medicare and Medicaid, repealing Obamacare and funding the country at levels backed by top military leaders. (Bade, 5/5)

The Associated Press: Senate Adopts GOP Budget Targeting ‘Obamacare’
Republicans and many economists say balancing the budget helps the economy in the long run and say it’s better to tackle the long-term financial problems of programs like Medicare and Medicaid sooner rather than later. They also promise to relieve the burden of debt that’s being passed on to future generations. (Taylor, 5/5)

The Associated Press: Senators Seek VA Probe To See If Mishandled Claims Systemic
Troubled by delays in handling of veterans claims, a bipartisan group of senators is seeking a wide-scale independent review of the Department of Veterans Affairs for mismanagement and changes to improve budgeting and speed up applications. (Yen, 5/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Aetna To Stop Covering Routine Use Of Power Morcellator
Aetna Inc. will stop covering routine use of the laparoscopic power morcellator this month, marking the most direct blow from a major health insurer to a surgical tool that regulators determined can spread hidden cancer in women. (Kamp, 5/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Community Health Swings To A Profit
Community Health Systems Inc. swung to a profit in the first quarter as the hospital operator continued to benefit from its acquisition of Health Management Associates Inc. and from higher admissions and lower uninsured rates after a federal health-care overhaul. More than 11 million people have signed up for health coverage in state and federal marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. (Armental, 5/5)

The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot: How Marketing Exclusivity Led To Higher Drug Costs And Questionable Benefits
Six years ago, the FDA approved a drug called Colcrys to treat acute gout attacks and familial Mediterranean fever, an inherited inflammatory disorder. The move came as part of an agency initiative to regulate dozens of medicines that had never been formally approved, but were on the market when the FDA received authority to oversee the drug approval process. (Silverman, 5/5)

The New York Times: Huckabee Vows To Protect Programs For Older Americans
Mike Huckabee drew roaring cheers from supporters on Tuesday as the latest entrant in a sprawling field of Republican presidential candidates by declaring himself the guardian of so-called entitlement programs, warning, “Let them end their own congressional pensions, not your Social Security!” But his pledge to fend off any tinkering with the popular Social Security and Medicare programs put him at odds with his Republican opponents, exposing growing fault lines in the party over an issue that has long been considered a political third rail. (Haberman, 5/6)

Los Angeles Times: Mike Huckabee Joins White House Race, Sets Sights On 'Higher Ground'
If elected president, Huckabee pledged to not cut Social Security and Medicare benefits and to overhaul the tax system. A balanced federal budget, term limits on the judiciary and Congress, and a muscular foreign policy would also be top priorities, he said. (Mehta, 5/5)

The Associated Press: Pence Signs Needle-Exchange Bill As HIV Outbreak Cases Grow
Indiana communities facing an HIV epidemic tied to intravenous drug use will have a way to implement needle-exchange programs under a measure Gov. Mike Pence signed into law Tuesday, as the number of confirmed cases in a rural outbreak grew to nearly 150. (5/5)

The New York Times: Air Ambulances Offer A Lifeline, And Then A Sky-High Bill
Clarence W. Kendall, a rancher in Pearce, Ariz., was moving bales on top of a haystack when he fell eight feet and struck his head on the corner of a truck below. His health insurance covered most of the cost of treating the head trauma caused by the accident. But there was one bill, for $47,182, that his insurance did not pay. (Eavis, 5/5)

NPR: Whooping Cough Vaccine's Protection Fades Quickly
Lately, Californians have been focused on a measles outbreak that got its start at Disneyland. But in the past five years, state health officials have declared epidemics of whooping cough twice — in 2010 and in 2014, when 11,000 people were sickened and three infants died. Now an analysis of a recent whooping cough epidemic in Washington state shows that the effectiveness of the Tdap vaccine used to fight the illness (also known as pertussis) waned significantly. For adolescents who received all their shots, effectiveness within one year of the final booster was 73 percent. The effectiveness rate plummeted to 34 percent within two to four years. (Aliferis, 5/5)