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House and Senate budget negotiators announced on Monday that they have struck a deal that rejects the fee increases and Medicaid expansion sought by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, but embraces some of the governor’s other spending priorities for mental health and economic development. Negotiators quickly struck the agreement after working over the weekend — a dramatic change from last year, when a months-long standoff over Medicaid delayed passage of a budget until the state was on the verge of a government shutdown. (Vozzella, 2/23)

People with serious mental illness but no health insurance would get help under the state budget agreement that emerged Monday from the House of Delegates and Senate. (Martz, 2/23)

Medicaid is one of the state’s largest expenses, and a big target for savings in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed two-year budget. But health care providers and social service advocates say the way Malloy would cut Medicaid is financially short-sighted and threatens to undermine recent progress in a program that has added thousands of new members as part of the federal health law, expanded the network of providers willing to treat them, and reduced its per-client costs. (Levin Becker, 2/24)