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The House voted Tuesday to abolish a cost-cutting board under ObamaCare that has drawn criticism from members of both parties. Lawmakers voted 244-154 to abolish what is known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The board is tasked with coming up with Medicare cuts if spending rises above a certain threshold, but has been criticized as outsourcing the work of Congress to unelected bureaucrats. (Sullivan and Marcos, 6/23)

The House voted Tuesday to kill a federal panel that is supposed to find ways to curb Medicare spending, as Republicans ignored a veto threat and leveled their latest blow at President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board have never been appointed, and the panel has never recommended savings from Medicare, the $600-billion-a-year health care program for the elderly. (6/23)

Shortly before the Supreme Court could invalidate Obamacare subsidies in most states, House members rolled back into town for a Tuesday evening vote to abolish “death panels.” Well, that’s the phrase Sarah Palin used. It might not be accurate in any direct or literal sense, but it has stuck around in Washington’s vocabulary for the last six years, a wry in-joke about the absurdity of the Obamacare debate. Of course, not everyone feels that way. House Republicans have the votes to pass their bill repealing the Medicare cost-cutting board known as IPAB (that’s “Independent Payment Advisory Board”). It’s a body charged with recommending ways to cut payments to doctors who accept Medicare patients in order to prevent federal healthcare costs from spiraling out of control over time. (Viebeck, 6/23)

Senate Republicans Tuesday proposed cuts to community health centers, national service, and grants to help children from low- and moderate-income families attend preschool as they unveiled the largest domestic appropriations bill, a $153 billion measure that’s sure to attract a veto threat from President Barack Obama. The author of the bill, Roy Blunt of Missouri, instead boosted the budget for the National Institutes of Health by $2 billion while awarding small increases to large programs giving grants to states for low-income school districts and special-needs children. (Taylor, 6/23)

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a new leader of its troubled health care arm. Dr. David Shulkin, president of the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, won approval as the VA's undersecretary for health by a voice vote Tuesday in the Senate. Shulkin steps into a key role managing a health-care system responsible for 9 million military veterans in nearly 1,000 VA hospitals and clinics nationwide. The VA was rocked by scandal last year over long waits for veterans seeking medical care at the Phoenix VA hospital and other sites and falsified records to cover up the delays. (Daly, 6/24)

That’s the subject of a joint hearing to be held Tuesday by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the House Small Business Committee, which will center on the aftermath of an explosive memo sent by a VA official detailing improper spending and contracting practices worth up to $6 billion at the agency. In a letter sent to VA Secretary Robert McDonald and made public last month, Jan R. Frye, the agency’s deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, said employees did not use a bidding system to buy goods, instead using purchase cards meant for convenience to buy billions of dollars’ worth of medical supplies without contracts. (Jayakumar, 6/23)

House appropriators asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to help doctors and hospitals confront two of their biggest challenges; the looming implementation of new ICD-10 medical billing codes and disputes with contractors hired to audit hospital claims. The requests accompany the fiscal 2016 Labor-Health and Human Services-Education spending bill, which the House Appropriations Committee will mark up tomorrow. In writing what amount to detailed instructions for agencies on how to use the $153 billion provided in this bill, the House appropriators also weighed in on current controversy over mammography recommendations, abortion coverage in insurance plans and travel spending within the Department of Health and Human Services. (Young, 6/23)