PLENTY TO DO — Congress returns this week with a to-do list that includes avoiding a government shutdown and vying to add major health provisions to government funding measures. The Senate returns today, and the House comes back Tuesday. Lawmakers have until Jan. 19 to avert a partial government shutdown, which includes the FDA and the VA, and until Feb. 2 to grapple with the Labor-HHS package and the rest of the government. Congressional leaders said Sunday they have agreed to a topline spending deal that will amount to a less than 1 percent cut from current non-defense funding. House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted clashes over controversial policy riders like those related to abortion. The deal also includes $6.1 billion in cuts from what Johnson called "COVID-era slush funds." There’s also a push to get health transparency measures into the Jan. 19 package, though the Senate and House would have to agree. The House overwhelmingly passed legislation increasing reporting requirements for insurers, hospitals and pharmacy benefit managers last month. Telehealth advocates are also eyeing the package as a vehicle for one of their top priorities, and lawmakers are seeking to reauthorize the Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act to deal with the opioid crisis. Several lawmakers are pushing to reauthorize PEPFAR — the United States’ global HIV/AIDS relief work — and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act after those lapsed in the fall. FAUCI IN THE HOT SEAT — Dr. Anthony Fauci will be on Capitol Hill today and Tuesday for a combined 14 hours of closed-door testimony before the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Fauci, who stepped down late last year after decades as a top federal health official under several presidents, has also pledged to appear at a not-yet-scheduled hearing sometime this year. Fauci declined to comment ahead of his appearance. The committee’s GOP majority has had its sights on Fauci since before the committee first formed a year ago, and its Republican members have signaled that they want to grill him on a range of Covid-19 state and national policy decisions, many of which weren’t under his direct control. “Americans demand and deserve explanations for any pandemic-era failures,” committee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in a statement, adding that members have more than 200 pages of questions. The committee’s Democrats, meanwhile, cast the interview as “politically motivated” and a waste of time that could be better spent on “pursuing solutions that we all agree will advance our nation’s biosafety, biosecurity, and pandemic preparedness.” In a statement, committee ranking member Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) accused the majority of “politicizing the greatest public health crisis of our time for their own partisan gain.” Key context: Republicans have accused Fauci and other senior health officials of working to cover up a lab-based origin of the coronavirus, a charge they’ve denied. Fauci’s previous appearances at congressional hearings have involved heated clashes with GOP lawmakers, and fireworks are expected again this week. On deck: The committee will interview former NIH Director Francis Collins on Friday. FIRST IN PULSE: SITE-NEUTRAL FIGHT ESCALATES — As government funding deadlines grow closer, the clash over so-called site-neutral payment provisions that could be attached to a spending package is intensifying. Such policies aim to pay the same for services, whether at hospital outpatient facilities or independent doctors’ offices. The House and Senate have signaled interest in them but have different approaches. The Coalition to Protect America’s Health Care, a hospital-tied group, is launching a seven-figure television and digital advertising bid to push back against such policies, saying they would hurt access to care. It comes after the group debuted a seven-figure ad buy last month. “If Washington politicians side with corporate insurers to cut hospital care, they would jeopardize patients’ access to crucial services that only hospitals provide,” the group said in a statement.
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