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Rep. Kevin Brady will be the next chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, where he will oversee tax laws and large entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. The Texas Republican was formally approved for this post by the full House Republican conference Thursday morning after being nominated for the job on Wednesday by a panel of House GOP leaders. (Snell, 11/5)

A number of congressional Republicans are moving away from making Planned Parenthood funding their biggest goal in coming spending battles and instead are looking to pick more winnable policy battles such as curbing the Internal Revenue Service or environmental regulations. Not all Republicans are willing to abandon a campaign popular among GOP voters and activists to strip federal funding from the women’s health organization. (Peterson, 11/5)

America’s rapidly aging population and the projected costs of millions of people struggling with multiple chronic illnesses may spawn bipartisan legislation “sooner rather than later,” staff experts who serve the top Republican and ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee said Thursday. In a national political environment in which health care and Medicare policies are assumed to divide the two parties, aides to Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and his Democratic colleague, Sen. Ron Wyden, struck a decidedly collaborative note during a discussion hosted by RealClearHealth. (Simendinger, 11/5)