On August 2, 2019, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (P.L.116-37) (“BBA”) was signed into law. This bill amends the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L.112-25) (“BCA”) by raising discretionary spending caps for FY2020 and FY2021...more
Outlook for This Week in the Nation's Capital - Congress. The House recessed for its summer break on Friday and will not return until September 9. The Senate is in session for another week. ...more
Rumors are swirling about the terms of President Trump’s fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget submission to Congress, but one thing is for certain—the request will be at least a month late. This will delay consideration of other core...more
On September 28, 2018, the House voted 361-61 to send President Trump a Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) spending bill including $674.4 billion for Defense and $178.1 billion for Labor-HHS-Education. The Senate voted 93-7 to adopt the...more
Quick hitter for you TCPAland. Yesterday the court in Sanford v. Navient Solutions, LLC, Case No. 1:17-cv-4356, 2018 WL 4699890 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 1, 2018) became the second court in the nation to hold that the 2015 Balanced...more
CMS recently published its proposed Medicare outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) rule for calendar year (CY) 2019. The rule contains a number of "site-neutral" proposals that, if adopted, will result in lower...more
Unlike the typical process of last-minute omnibus appropriations, Congress has taken a renewed approach to the appropriations process this year, passing individual appropriations measures at a pace unheard of in recent...more
Lawmakers have returned from the Memorial Day recess and are facing a packed legislative agenda over the summer. With the announcement this week of a shortened August recess, the Senate will have more time to address...more
Washington saw a flurry of bipartisan activity over the last few weeks. Most notably, Republican and Democratic negotiators reached a long-awaited deal on sequestration budget caps. The compromise, announced on February 7 as...more
Congress returned from its spring recess with a host of issues to address—trade, Trump administration nominations and opioid legislation sitting atop the priority list. Given the ongoing data scandal at Facebook, privacy...more
Opioid Funding Overview - In 2016, through the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) and the 21st Century Cures Act, Congress authorized roughly $1.4 billion in spending to combat the opioid crisis....more
Outlook for This Week in the Nation's Capital - FY18 Omnibus Wrap-up: On Thursday, Appropriations Subcommittees had to report any unresolved issues up to the Full Committee and while the work largely appears to be done,...more
On February 9, 2018, President Trump signed a bipartisan budget deal into law, effectively extending federal funding through March 23, 2018. The act includes multiple provisions affecting employee benefit plans, including...more
In the third episode of our series on the national opioid crisis, Amanda Makki and Corbin Santo provide an overview of how the Trump Administration and Congress may address the opioid epidemic this year....more
The Trump administration proposed a budget increase of 19 million to aid in the fight against health care fraud. This showcases the continued (and heightened) importance of anti-fraud programs, especially compared to the...more
The Trump Administration on Feb. 12 released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget request, titled "An American Budget." Unlike last year's budget, which was released in late May, the release of this budget conforms to the typical...more
On Friday, February 9, 2018, President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (the “Budget”), a two-year budget which, in significant part, made substantial revisions to Medicare, including the Medicare Advantage (MA)...more
As part of the budget agreement signed By President trump on February 9, some additional provisions have been added including changes to the hardship provisions for retirement plans....more
On February 12, 2018, the White House released the President's Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) budget, outlining a $4.4 trillion federal budget proposal that prioritizes substantially higher spending on the military and on border...more
With President Trump signing into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 this past Friday, Congress established a new bipartisan, bicameral committee with the express goal of improving “the solvency of multiemployer pension...more
On Feb. 9, President Trump signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. This piece of legislation is most notable for funding the U.S. government, but the Budget Act also provides valuable tax extenders for various...more
• Congress amended current law to prevent CMS from applying the “MIPS” payment adjustment to separately billed items like drugs and biologics, which will drastically reduce the total amount of payment adjustments to clinical...more
The U.S. Department of the Treasury (the “Treasury”) and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) have issued a new installment of proposed regulations under the centralized partnership audit regime included in the...more
Summer was no vacation for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency released a series of significant rules that signal the nature and pace of CMS Medicare payment and policy changes for hospitals and...more
The U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) have re-issued proposed regulations (the “Proposed Regulations”) on the new centralized partnership audit rules enacted as part of the Bipartisan...more