Overnight Healthcare: Ryan raises hopes for mental health reform bill

House Speaker Paul Ryan is giving an important boost to a mental health bill from Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)

In an interview with 60 Minutes this weekend, Ryan personally advocated for Murphy’s bill, which he said could be a response to the nation’s growing gun violence problem.

“I think we need to improve our mental health laws so we can address these problems before they get out of control, because mental health is a component to a lot of these shootings that, I think, we have not looked at seriously enough,” Ryan said.

{mosads}Murphy’s bill, which would overhaul the system for treating seriously mentally ill people, was cast as the Republican response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting when the measure was first introduced in 2013.

The controversial measure has been delayed for years. Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had supported the reforms broadly, but tried to break up the bill to dilute some of its controversy.

The legislation is slowly moving forward, with the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee advancing the measure earlier this month. Still, the bill faces a major hurdle – its price tag. Read more here.

WASHINGTON AG FINDS NO PROBLEMS WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Planned Parenthood affiliates in Washington State have been cleared of any allegations of wrongdoing, the state’s attorney general announced Monday.

In a report Monday, Attorney General Bob Ferguson rejected claims that Planned Parenthood has performed partial-birth abortions or that any of its clinics sell fetal tissue for profit “rather than simply recovering costs.”

“We found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure,” Ferguson wrote in his report.

Washington is one of only two states where a Planned Parenthood clinic allows women to donate fetal tissue to medical research – a legal, though controversial, practice that came under scrutiny after a series of sting videos this summer.  Read more here.

NEW MEDICARE PAYMENT MODEL FOR SOME SURGERIES: The Obama administration on Monday finalized a new way for Medicare to pay for hip and knee replacements that is part of a broader push to reward quality over quantity in healthcare. 

Under the rule announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), hospitals will receive a financial reward if they perform well enough on quality and cost measures around the procedures, or on the flip side will have to pay some money back to the government if they don’t perform well enough. 

The idea is to move away from what is viewed as an inefficient system of paying individually for each service a hospital provides, and instead reward coordination and quality. Read more here.

Tuesday’s schedule:

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the nomination of the FDA commissioner at 10 a.m.

The House En­ergy and Com­merce Health Sub­com­mit­tee will hold a hearing on regulating dia­gnost­ic tests at 10 a.m.

The House Judiciary’s Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled “The State of Competition in the Pharmacy Benefit Manager And Pharmacy Marketplaces” at 3 p.m.

What we’re reading

Medicaid group ramps up lobbying on drug prices (STAT)

How one of progressives’ favorite parts of ObamaCare fell apart (National Journal)

Lawmakers, candidates target high drug prices (Wall Street Journal)

Many say high deductibles make ObamaCare insurance all but useless (New York Times)

State by state

Supreme Court rejects New Hampshire Right to Life’s case against Planned Parenthood (Wall Street Journal)

Planned Parenthood money on the chopping block in Ohio (Cincinnati.com) 

Burwell: States like Georgia will eventually see benefit of Medicaid expansion (The Atlantic)

What you might have missed from The Hill

McDonalds, Wal-Mart push for more funding to fight superbugs

Please send tips and comments to Sarah Ferris, sferris@digital-staging.thehill.com, and Peter Sullivan, psullivan@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow on Twitter: @thehill, @sarahnferris, @PeterSullivan4