�鶹Ů��

A bipartisan pair of senators introduced a bill Wednesday that would create a new “national nurse” position tasked with preventing diseases like obesity and heart disease. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) said the national nurse would focus on education to help to curb the growing epidemics of obesity, heart disease and cancer. (Ferris, 5/6)

Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) have introduced new bipartisan legislation to require medical researchers to study female animals and cells in addition to male ones. The bill, which would apply to research funded by the National Institutes of Health, would allow for new treatments to be tailored to differences in women, something that is lost when researchers only use male animals, the lawmakers argue. (Sullivan, 5/6)

A new bid to delay the national switchover to the ICD-10 medical billing codes addresses the complaints of doctors in small medical practices but runs counter to the arguments that hospital and insurance trade groups have made for sticking with an Oct. 1 deadline. Rep. Ted Poe of Texas has quickly drawn the support of six fellow Republicans for his bill (HR 2126), introduced April 30, which seeks to block Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell from replacing the ICD-9 medical codes now in use. In a statement, Poe called the ICD-10 codes is a “burdensome bureaucratic system” that will “put an unnecessary strain on the medical community.” His measure would leave the existing codes in place. (Young, 5/7)

That's because the budget itself is nonbinding and, on its own, has no effect on spending. And also because Republicans have decided against using unique budget rules for follow-up legislation to save the trillions of dollars from food stamps, Medicaid and other benefit programs that would be needed to erase red ink. To do that would spark a pitched political battle with Democrats, a veto from President Barack Obama — and a possible backlash from the voters in 2016. (5/6)