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A short-term bill to fund the government through Dec. 11 overcame a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday, just days before the deadline to avoid a shutdown. Senators voted 77-19 to end debate on the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government. The move paves the way for final passage before the Oct. 1 deadline. (Carney, 9/28)

The suspense over whether the GOP-led Congress would keep the government open beyond Sept. 30 ended altogether when Speaker John Boehner announced his resignation plans last week. The stunning move ensures that the Ohio Republican would be free to rely on Democrats to pass a clean funding bill without political retribution from his conservative agitators. (Kim, 9/28)

If all goes according to the plan hatched by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House could clear the stop-gap funding bill on Wednesday, averting a shutdown with hours to spare before the Oct. 1 deadline. ... Cruz railed against Planned Parenthood and the Iran deal on the Senate floor following the vote Monday, saying he believes the “votes are cooked” in Congress. ... The Texas Republican and other conservatives for weeks have been calling on GOP leaders to confront Obama over abortion policies by using the spending bill needed to avert a shutdown this week to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. But they are now focusing their attention on December. (Snell and Zezima, 9/28)

McConnell is under fire from tea partyers who demand that he fight harder against Planned Parenthood — even at the risk of a partial government shutdown — but McConnell is more concerned with protecting his 2016 re-election class from political damage if Republicans are blamed for a shutdown. (Taylor, 9/28)

“It does not represent my first, second, third, or 23rd choice when it comes to funding the government,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “But it will keep the government open through the fall and funded at the bipartisan level already agreed to by both parties as we work on the way forward.” (Howell, 9/28)

But the glide path to avoiding a shutdown this week sets up an even bigger clash in December, when lawmakers have to agree on a new funding bill for the new fiscal year. Democrats at both ends of the Capitol, as well as in the White House, will demand raising the current caps for domestic spending. But hawkish Republicans have long insisted on boosting cash for defense programs, while fiscal conservatives will abhor any additional spending overall. (Kim, 9/28)

Ted Cruz can’t even get a protest vote in the Senate anymore. On Monday night, Cruz’s colleagues ignored his attempt to disrupt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to fund the government without attacking Planned Parenthood. In an unusual rebuke, even fellow Republicans denied him a “sufficient second” that would have allowed him a roll call vote. (Everett, 9/28)

Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday was blocked from trying to link the Iran nuclear deal and a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood to a government funding bill. The Texas Republican, who is running for president, was blocked from offering his amendment during a voice vote. He tried to get a roll call vote but couldn't get the necessary support from his colleagues. (Carney, 9/28)

Hard-line conservative Republicans, emboldened by their role in the resignation of House Speaker John A. Boehner, are struggling to recruit a candidate with enough political capital and grass-roots support to challenge Boehner’s heir apparent. That contender, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), announced his bid for speaker Monday, but by sharing Boehner’s relaxed personality and center-right Republican politics, he would almost certainly face similar problems from the conservative wing from the start and skepticism about whether he can truly give voice to the base’s frustrations. (Costa and DeBonis, 9/28)

In Planned Parenthood’s first congressional appearance since being embarrassed by surreptitiously recorded videos, the organization’s president said she is “proud” of its provision of fetal tissue for research but also sought to minimize the organ donations as a small part of its work. Trying to take the offensive, Cecile Richards also criticized the Republicans who control Congress for not investigating David Daleiden and the other anti-abortion activists who made the recordings. (Fram, 9/29)

House conservatives aren't expected to force a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding this week, but they are gearing up for a public face off with the organization and its president, Cecile Richards. Richards is set to appear on Capitol Hill today to testify before the House Oversight Committee. (Weinberg, 9/29)

Planned Parenthood's president will tell a House committee Tuesday that she is "proud" of the work her organization does, even as the organization is embroiled in a controversy over videos depicting the sale of fetal tissue. Cecile Richards will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee Tuesday morning. It will be her first appearance since the scandal erupted this past July. (9/29)

The head of Planned Parenthood testifies Tuesday before a House committee investigating secretly recorded videos by a group that accuses Planned Parenthood of profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. (Ludden, 9/29)

Republicans this week will launch a new strategy to try to defund Planned Parenthood now that it's clear that Congress will vote this week to keep the government open without addressing the issue. The House also is expected to consider this week the creation of a select committee to investigate allegations that the nation's largest abortion provider discussed selling tissue and organs from aborted fetuses for profit. Planned Parenthood vehemently denies the allegation, saying that undercover videos taken by anti-abortion activists were heavily edited and misleading. (Kelly, 9/28)

Planned Parenthood, which provides an array of health services, including abortions, through clinics and affiliates nationwide, is under criticism by Republicans over the use of aborted fetuses in medical research. The Republicans want to cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, and some lawmakers have even threatened to shut down the federal government in order to do so. Fighting back, Planned Parenthood has declared Tuesday to be “National Pink Out Day,” and said it expected millions of supporters to rally in the group’s defense. (Herszenhorn, 9/28)

Democrats on the House oversight committee are trying to force Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. to provide documents explaining hefty price increases for two heart drugs. (Rockoff, 9/28)

Congressional Democrats are pressing a Republican committee chairman to force a pharmaceutical company to turn over documents tied to price hikes imposed earlier this year. Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter Monday to Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asking him to issue a subpoena to Valeant Pharmaceuticals and to invite the Canadian company to testify next week. (9/28)

Democratic lawmakers on Monday attacked "massive" price increases of two heart drugs by Canada's Valeant, fueling a rout in drugmaker shares on worries of a government and insurer clampdown on U.S. drug prices. All 18 Democratic members of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform urged their chairman to subpoena Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and force it to provide documents relating to price increases of 212 percent for Isuprel and 525 percent for Nitropress. Valeant boosted the prices immediately after buying the heart drugs last February. (Pierson and Berkrot, 9/28)

Republicans will seek to repeal a range of ObamaCare taxes as well as the healthcare law’s mandates to buy insurance through the fast-track process known as reconciliation. President Obama is sure to veto the measures, but reconciliation will allow them to at least reach his desk, bypassing an expected Senate Democratic filibuster. (Sullivan, 9/28)

Thousands of Minnesotans who buy health insurance on their own are bracing for final word on whether their premiums will spike next year. On Thursday, the Minnesota Department of Commerce is scheduled to release 2016 rates for shoppers who buy individual policies. (Snowbeck, 9/28)

A federal program designed to aid federally created health plans such as the Louisiana Health Cooperative Inc. instead became the final nail in the ailing nonprofit’s coffin. Louisiana Health — taken over by state regulators on Sept. 1 — was one of 23 plans created nationally under the Affordable Care Act to ensure there would be competition among health insurers. Altogether the co-ops received more than $2.4 billion in low-interest federal loans to get started. ... the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, also included programs designed to stabilize the health insurance market. One of them, risk adjustment, takes money from insurers with a healthier mix of customers and spreads it among companies who take on sicker policyholders. ... The co-op thought it would receive $2.8 million under the risk adjustment program, but health insurers didn’t know exactly how the provision would affect them until June 30. That’s when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report that contained an unpleasant surprise for the Louisiana co-op: Instead of getting $2.8 million, the co-op would have to pay $7.5 million to the federal government. (Griggs, 9/26)

Health insurance is a competitive and volatile business, as some health systems that have entered the market have painfully discovered. But they're making the leap because the payoff is often a bump in revenue at a time of slow growth for hospitals. (Evans, 9/28)

The Alaska Legislature’s lawsuit to block Gov. Bill Walker’s Medicaid expansion will continue in state Superior Court after a House-Senate committee met behind closed doors Monday to discuss the litigation, but declined to stop it with a public vote. “Personally, I don’t believe that litigation is a productive course of action,” Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, said after the Joint Legislative Council meeting. “However, as I look at the passion on both sides of this issue, no one is going to be satisfied until litigation is complete.” That could take up two years, he said. (Hanlon, 9/28)

State lawmakers met privately Monday to discuss whether or not the Medicaid expansion lawsuit filed against Governor Bill Walker should move forward. Members of the legislative council convened until noon Monday in a closed-door executive session at the Anchorage Legislative Information Offices. There, they consulted with attorneys from Washington DC-based law firm Bancroft PLLC. “There's not enough certainty one way or another to go forward with the lawsuit or to dismiss the lawsuit,” House Speaker Mike Chenault told KTUU. (Baird, 9/28)

A new coalition of Nebraska lawmakers is considering options for expanding Medicaid coverage that could be approved by the Legislature, which has rejected similar measures three times in as many years. Supporters of the effort quietly convened last week for a listening session to hear concerns and questions about Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act from fellow lawmakers. They also are reaching out to chambers of commerce and hospital groups for evidence of the potential business effect on Nebraska. A second listening session is scheduled for October. Leading the effort is state Sen. John McCollister of Omaha, the former director of an Omaha think tank that staunchly opposes Medicaid expansion. (9/29)

South Dakota may join 30 other states in expanding its Medicaid program if federal officials approve a plan Gov. Dennis Daugaard is set to outline to the nation's top health and human services administrator in Washington on Tuesday. The Republican governor is meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to explain the plan, and the federal government has so far been more open to discussions than in the past, said Tony Venhuizen, chief of staff to Daugaard. The proposal, which is in its early stages, would make about 48,500 South Dakota residents newly eligible for the program. ... The proposal pays for the state's share of the expansion in part by expanding access to services that are fully funded by the federal government, with the goal of freeing up enough state funding to pay for the addition of more residents to the Medicaid program. Officials are focusing on people who are eligible for Medicaid but can get services through the Indian Health Service. The goal is make services through the Indian Health Service more accessible so that people don't have to go an outside health care provider, which can happen if the IHS is unable to offer a specific service. (Nord, 9/28)

The citizen-based group Blueprint Louisiana has released an election-year agenda designed to push for four key reforms the group wants the new governor and legislators to take on next year. ... This is the third election-year agenda the group has released since forming in 2006. The group's secretary, Clay Allen, described the state as in the middle of "a fiscal nightmare and a detrimental cycle of budget deficits." He added that the group is supporting both fixing the transportation backlog and Medicaid expansion. "It seems clear-cut to us that the state should step up and accept the federal health care dollars that are rightfully Louisiana's," Allen said, "which not only helps patients and providers but also provides some relief tot he budget." (Litten, 9/28)

Computer-assisted detection used in most U.S. mammograms adds no benefit to breast cancer screening while substantially increasing costs, a large study suggests. Some previous research said computer technology could serve almost as a second set of eyes for doctors. The technique uses special software to highlight suspicious-looking areas on mammogram images that radiologists who interpret the scans may have missed. The doctors then take another look before making a determination. (Tanner, 9/28)

Computer-aided detection (CAD) marks areas of concern on mammogram readouts that radiologists might otherwise miss. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 and became common after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services increased reimbursement for the technology in 2002, the authors write. (Doyle, 9/28)

Breast cancer screening performed with computer-aided technology from companies like Hologic Inc. and Icad Inc., designed to boost the accuracy of mammograms, failed to find more tumors, according to a study that suggests its widespread use should be curtailed. The technology, approved in the U.S. in 1998, is used in 90 percent of mammograms performed each year at a cost of more than $400 million, according to lead researcher Constance Lehman, director of breast imaging and co-director of the Avon Foundation Comprehensive Breast Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. That should end, she said. (Cortez and Tracer, 9/28)

An investigation in Missouri found no evidence that Planned Parenthood's St. Louis clinic mishandled fetal tissue or engaged in unlawful activity, Attorney General Chris Koster's office said on Monday. Koster, a Democrat, launched the investigation after an anti-abortion group released videos in July alleging that Planned Parenthood illegally sold fetal tissue in other states. Officials in other states also launched investigations. (9/28)

The Utah branch of Planned Parenthood sued the governor on Monday for ordering state agencies to cut off federal funding to the organization following the release of secretly recorded videos by an anti-abortion group. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert's action was unconstitutional and based on unfounded allegations, the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said in federal court documents. (9/28)

Amid the politically charged debate over whether public funding for Planned Parenthood should be cut off, state Auditor Dave Yost ran a check on the non-profit organization's use of public money on abortions. Over the last two months, at Yost's request, employees in the Ohio Department of Medicaid have gathered data on the services Planned Parenthood has provided to Ohio Medicaid patients. No irregularities were found. (Higgs, 9/28)

With a deadline looming, opponents of a new law requiring vaccines for most schoolchildren delivered petitions on Monday signed by thousands of people to county registrars across the state -- an important step in a campaign to repeal the legislation. Senate Bill 277 is loathed by a segment of California parents who believe some vaccines are unsafe for some children. State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, introduced the bill earlier this year to boost vaccination rates in pockets of the state where he believes too few children are protected from infectious diseases. (Calefati, 9/28)

Opponents of California’s tough new vaccine law filed petitions Monday seeking to put a referendum on the issue on the November 2016 ballot, but it may be a month before elections officials determine whether the ballot measure qualifies. Former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who led the largely volunteer effort, issued a statement saying he hopes the law "will go down in infamy," added that the referendum effort was "sabotaged," but did not disclose how many signatures were being turned in by today's deadline. (McGreevy, 9/28)

D.C. . Mayor Muriel E. Bowser will propose using private ambulances to transport non-serious patients to hospitals, a change that comes after instances in which no city ambulances were available in life-or-death situations. (Davis and Williams, 9/28)

New legislation signed recently by Gov. Bruce Rauner aims to give severely mentally ill children better access to residential treatment and intensive community services. The measure moves the Individual Care Grant program — the main funding source for families struggling to afford treatment — from the Department of Human Services to the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, which should create more flexibility and efficiency, lawmakers said. (Miller Rubin, 9/28)

“Imagine,” said Dr. Steven J. Stack, president of the American Medical Association. “In a world where a 2-year-old can operate an iPhone, you have graduate-educated physicians brought to their knees by electronic health records.” Has anyone ever summed up better the monumental frustrations that many doctors encounter when grappling with electronic medical records? (Goldberg, 9/28)

New York City health officials are investigating seven cases of Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx, about two months after an outbreak of the same type of pneumonia killed 12 people in the borough and sickened more than 100. The new cluster is associated with the Morris Park section of the Bronx, and is unrelated to the earlier outbreak, which was centered in the South Bronx, city officials said Monday. (Gay, 9/28)

The trade group for hospitals in Minnesota has won more federal funding for programs that are designed to prevent patients from suffering harm during hospital stays. Last week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced $110 million in funding to 17 national, regional or state hospital associations and health systems for what are called “Hospital Engagement Networks,” which work to improve patient safety. (Snowbeck, 9/28)

Imagine you are rushed to the hospital as pain radiates through your chest. Doctors whirl around you, but you don’t know what’s happening because everyone is speaking a foreign language. That’s what happened to farmworker Angelina Diaz-Ramirez, 50, after she had a heart attack in a Monterey County green bean field in 2012. (Raff, 9/28)

Township High School District 113 has agreed to allow NorthShore University HealthSystems to refer to itself as an "official health care partner" of the Highland Park High School athletics program and use school logos for promotional purposes. The school's booster organization, the Giants Club, has been negotiating a new sponsorship agreement with the health care network, which includes Highland Park Hospital, that would increase NorthShore's involvement with the athletic program for a two-year term in exchange for a financial contribution. (Berkowitz, 9/28)

Amid a major reorganization of Los Angeles County's healthcare bureaucracy, physician and administrator Mitch Katz is poised to become arguably the most powerful nonelected official in the nation's largest local government. Katz currently heads the Department of Health Services, a system of county hospitals and clinics with 20,000 employees and an operating budget of $4.8 billion. Now, over the objections of a vocal group of critics, county supervisors appear prepared to place him atop a significantly larger agency that will consolidate his department with separate county mental health and public health operations. The new super health agency would account for nearly a third of the county's $27-billion budget. (Sewell, 9/29)

The debate over the size and role of government isn’t just polarizing national politics. It is also at the center of a dispute in Sedgwick County over public health funding. (McClean, 9/28)

A group of former Los Angeles County jail inmates said Monday that a recent legal settlement between the Sheriff's Department and federal authorities will perpetuate the cycle of people with untreated mental illness bouncing back and forth between jail and skid row. The former inmates are seeking changes in the settlement that was reached this year as part of an effort to end abuse of inmates by sheriff's deputies and to improve chronically poor treatment of mentally ill inmates. (Sewell and Change, 9/28)

House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation last Friday steeply reduced the likelihood there will be a government shutdown this week but precipitously increased the possibility of a shutdown in December. ... In the immediate aftermath of Boehner’s decision to leave—which the Freedom Caucus considers the biggest victory of its relatively short existence — it has already made threats about what will happen to the members of the GOP House leadership if Planned Parenthood funding is allowed to continue or if the current caps on federal spending are lifted. If the new speaker is unable to work out a compromise on those issues, a shutdown is far more likely than not. (Stan Collender, 9/28)

[Republican presidential candidate Carly] Fiorina, however, is all about specificity. During the debate this month, she created an electric moment when she went after Planned Parenthood. Glaring into the camera, she challenged Democrats to view the sting videos taken by antiabortion activists and “watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” One problem: No such video exists. To be precise, I should say that no one has been able to find such footage and Fiorina refuses to produce it. (Eugene Robinson, 9/28)

Health-care stocks suffered an ugly tumble on Monday, dragging down the overall Dow Jones Industrial Average by nearly 2%. The selloff was particularly marked in biotech, with Nasdaq’s industry index plunging 6%, extending a 13% drop last week, and erasing all gains so far this year, as the nearby chart shows. Thus does politics injure the real economy. Analysts attributed the slide to a letter that socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and House Democrats sent Monday to Valeant Pharmaceuticals threatening a subpoena and demanding the drug maker justify price increases for two heart rhythm medications. Valeant shares were off 17% for the day. The letter illustrates the larger problem of growing political hostility to drug research and development. (9/28)

Hillary Clinton may have found the perfect target to show that she'll be as tough on corporations as her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders: big pharma. Following up on her tweet last week against "price-gouging" by Turing Pharmaceuticals that sent biotech stocks plummeting, the Democratic front-runner released a hard-hitting television ad on Monday suggesting that CEO Mark Shkreli decided to lower prices after she went after him. In between, she unveiled a proposal to cap out-of-pocket drug expenses, offering tax credits to help families deal with soaring costs, forcing drug manufacturers to invest more on research and development, and obliging companies to invest in the production of generics. The response from industry has been, to say the least, unenthusiastic. (David Knowles, 9/29)

Hillary Clinton thinks drug development should be riskier, and less profitable. Also, your health insurance premiums should be higher. And there should be fewer drugs available. This is not, of course, how the Clinton campaign would put it. The official line is that Americans are just paying too darn much for drugs, and she has a plan to stop that. (Megan McArdle, 9/28)

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prescription drug policy proposal, released last week, would hold drug manufacturers accountable to their level of investment in research. But there are some potentially valuable drugs we’ll never get drug companies to invest in — those that cannot be patented. By granting temporary monopolies to innovators, the patent system is widely credited with protecting and promoting innovation. But when it comes to pharmaceuticals, it may be preventing valuable therapies from coming to market. (Austin Frakt, 9/28)

The co-ops do not have the kind of massive capital reserves that [insurance] incumbents can use to survive a few years of mispricing. The temporary programs the law contains to help smooth out these issues turned out to be less generous than expected after Republicans insisted they be made revenue-neutral, and at any rate, they were set to expire. So it’s not exactly an enormous surprise to see the co-ops starting to drop out. In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't matter that much; the program was not central to Obamacare .... But this story is still worth noting because it highlights one of the central fallacies of the entire Obamacare debate: the belief, cherished by most people, that there is a magic pot of money somewhere in the health care system that can be painlessly tapped to provide people cheaper, better health care. (Megan McArdle, 9/28)

The billionaire’s main contribution to global health is the manner in which he combines technology, aspiration, resources and rigor. It is the same approach that has chased the polio virus across the world to its redoubts in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Michael Gerson, 9/28)

Texas needs Planned Parenthood. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Texas has one of the country’s highest rates of teen pregnancies. In 2011, Texas had the fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. We need organizations like Planned Parenthood to discuss family planning and provide information on contraception and sex education to young people in need. Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas has served this need and has helped to reduce the number of unplanned teen pregnancies. (Lourdes Galvan, 9/28)

It became abundantly clear in January that the Board of Supervisors, without the benefit or bother of public input, was intent on consolidating three Los Angeles County health departments into a kind of superagency. After the supervisors voted to pursue such a merger, The Times unearthed a "confidential" memo to each of them from Department of Health Services Director Mitchell Katz, laying out the case for combining the departments of mental health and public health with Katz's department, which chiefly handles public hospitals and clinics. "In response to your request," the memo began, suggesting a discussion that had already been moving forward secretly — and unlawfully, because such policy moves are and ought to be subject to the scrutiny of professionals who provide services, patients who use them and taxpayers who pay the bill. (9/27)