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Legislation crucial to hospitals, physicians and community health centers took a major step forward Wednesday when the House passed a measure to prevent parts of the federal government from shutting down. The bill would delay an $8 billion reduction in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments for a year, mitigate a Medicare physician pay cut that took effect Jan. 1 and extend funding for federally qualified health centers for four years. (McAuliff, 3/6)

A controversial effort to mandate minimum staffing levels for nursing homes would be halted under legislation a congressional committee approved Wednesday. President Joe Biden announced the initiative during the State of the Union address in 2022 and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule to carry it out last September. The nursing home industry strongly opposes the policy, which has generated less than vigorous public support. (McAuliff and Eastabrook, 3/6)

House Reps. Maxwell Frost (Fla.) and Mark Takano (Calif.) voted against the “minibus” legislation Wednesday that funds a slew of agencies and departments through the end of fiscal 2024. Frost, a first-term lawmaker who rose to prominence as a gun control advocate, said the measure features “the greatest rollback of the background check system since it was created.” A provision in the bill would allow veterans determined unable to manage their benefits to be able to purchase guns. Takano, the ranking member on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said it comes at the expense of the most “vulnerable” U.S. veterans.” (Timotija, 3/6)

House Republicans on Wednesday demanded that federal health officials address an alleged Medicare fraud ring estimated at more than $2 billion. Health-care groups warn that the scheme has ensnared hundreds of thousands of patients and continues to expand. At least 10 companies are linked to an unexplained surge in bills for intermittent urinary catheters, low-cost devices used to relieve urinary incontinence, according to interviews with health-care officials, physicians and patients and documents obtained by The Washington Post. (Dan Diamond, 3/6)

Popular weight loss and diabetes drugs are getting caught up in a bid by US lawmakers to reduce the country’s reliance on Chinese biotech companies. Much of the active base ingredient used in Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound and Mounjaro medicines is produced by WuXi AppTec Co., one of the main companies in the crosshairs of the Biosecure Act currently under discussion in the US Congress, according to people familiar with the company’s operations. (Cha, Muller, and Fay Cortez, 3/6)