WHITE HOUSE:

The White House focused this week on the President’s controversial pardon of his son, their work with the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the United States’ investments in new rail transit in Africa. One item of indirect interest for us:

• The Deputy Director of the National Economic Council reviewed the efforts the Administration has made to make housing more affordable. It’s an excellent resource to see all the different actions that have occurred in the past few years to facilitate building more affordable housing, such as relaxed zoning or public-private partnerships.

CONGRESS/TRANSITION:

With the December 20^th deadline to get government funding done coming up quickly, discussions are well underway to get something done. Neither party wants to risk a government shutdown and, despite conservative opposition, Congressional leaders are working towards a short-term continuing resolution that will keep things funded till the first quarter of 2025. The problem with punting funding till then, of course, is that negotiating a funding deal during the first 100 days of the President-Elect’s presidency will complicate matters for a very ambitious agenda. Still, with time running out, the CR will likely get done in the next 12 days. Elsewhere in the political world:

• An important procedural tool available to the Republican trifecta will be “Reconciliation”, which allows for an expedited legislative process as long as the legislation under consideration concern spending. Republicans have begun the process of figuring out what they can, and can’t include, in the party-line bills that will be key to enacting the GOP agenda.

• The goals for Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s DOGE are slowly coming into focus, with Musk & Ramaswamy spending the day on Capitol Hill rounding up support for the effort. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, the head of the Senate caucus supporting Doge, laid out her initial target: limiting remote work (PDF). She also prepared a 60-page report (PDF) backing up the agenda.

• We finally have all the election results in with the GOP actually losing one seat and locking in a tiny majority for the GOP.

• This is an important week for the upcoming Congress as the GOP will be picking new chairs for influential committees.

• As Democrats think about how to reinvent the party following their dismal showing in the election, younger members of the party are making moves to take more prominent positions in key committees.

• While not a cabinet level position, the President-Elect picked someone to serve as the White’s House new czar of AI & cryptocurrency. It’s also a good time to remember that the US isn’t the only country trying to build AI regulations: Politico took a long look at Britain’s approach.

• With a new Congress coming in, and spending a major priority for the GOP, the CRS put out an updated guide to their primer on the Congressional budgetary authority. It’s available here (PDF).

AGENCIES:

HHS announced a new global strategy to promote collaboration and innovation in tackling international health cooperation. The strategy is here (PDF).

HHS announced a new dashboard designed to track hospital safety measures. It’s available here.

The OIG at HHS released an audit of compliance with federal requirements for an infection control position by nonprofit and government SNF’s, finding that they complied with the measurements. The summary is here (PDF) and the full report here (PDF).

CMS sent out guidance to state Medicaid agencies on protecting Medicaid beneficiaries against “impermissible fraud and abuse sanctions”. You can access a copy here (PDF).

Minnesota’s Attorney General sent a letter to Humana calling them out for misleading information in their advertising as providers continue to drop out of their network. You can access a copy here (PDF).

The Department of Labor announced a proposed rule that would phase out a federal exemption that allows some employers to pay workers with disabilities less than minimum wage. The proposed rule can be found at the Federal Register where comments can be submitted through January 17^th, 2025.

FROM THE NOTEBOOK:

• A deep dive from Governing on how DOGE can accomplish their goals: shifting the authority on federal programs to the states.

• JAMA explored what’s in store for Medicaid and the ACA under the new Administration.

• Kaiser Health News looked at the 9 states where Medicaid expansion is immediately in the crosshairs, owing to the existence of “trigger” laws that end the expansion should federal funding for the expansion be cut.

• The Kaiser Family Foundation broke down how nursing facilities have changed since 2015.

• As we’ve covered many times, Medicare Advantage plans continue to cost the government more money than traditional Medicare. 2 policy experts wrote an op-ed breaking down just why it’s such a bad deal for the government.

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