Overnight Health Care: McConnell says Senate probably moving on from ObamaCare repeal | 8.8M sign up for ObamaCare | Second judge halts Trump rollback of birth control rule

McConnell: Senate probably moving on from ObamaCare repeal

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that the Senate will likely be moving on from ObamaCare repeal next year.

“Well, we obviously were unable to completely repeal and replace with a 52-48 Senate,” McConnell told NPR. “We’ll have to take a look at what that looks like with a 51-49 Senate. But I think we’ll probably move on to other issues.”

{mosads}

The Senate Republican leader will see his majority shrink to 51-49 once Alabama Democrat Doug Jones is seated in January.

McConnell told NPR that Republicans have already taken the “heart” out of the health-care law by repealing ObamaCare’s individual mandate in the tax legislation they passed this week.

Read more here.

8.8 million sign up for ObamaCare, nearly matching last year

Nearly 9 million people signed up for health insurance coverage through the federal ObamaCare exchanges, according to a top administration official.

Last year, 9.2 million people signed up for coverage during an open enrollment period that was twice as long.

Approximately 8.8 million people enrolled during the six-week open enrollment period in the 39 states that use the federal healthcare.gov website, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid administrator Seema Verma tweeted Thursday.

The strong numbers come despite worries from Democrats and activists that the Trump administration was sabotaging the health-care law, and belie repeated claims from the administration that the law is failing.

Read more here.

GOP includes $2.8B for children’s health-care funding in stopgap bill

House Republicans have included $2.85 billion to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in a stopgap spending measure intended to prevent a government shutdown on Saturday.

The funding provides money for CHIP through the end of March as the GOP faces criticism from Democrats, who argued Republicans were prepared to leave town without extending a program that provides support for 9 million children across the country.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been giving states unused funds to help them keep their CHIP benefits afloat. Some states have sent letters or posted notices on their website warning families that, without new funding from Congress, their CHIP benefits could go away at the end of January.

Read more here.

Second judge halts Trump rollback of ObamaCare birth control rule

A federal judge in California has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s recent rules allowing moral and religious exceptions to ObamaCare’s birth control requirement, the second time this week a court has ruled against the administration.

Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. granted the injunction Thursday in the District Court for the Northern District of California. The ruling comes on the heels of a similar injunction made by a federal judge in Pennsylvania last Friday.

ObamaCare requires that most companies cover birth control as preventive care for women at no additional cost.

The Trump administration rolled back the requirement earlier this year, arguing that it infringed on the religious and moral rights of some businesses.

Read more here.

McConnell: Entitlement reform not on 2018 Senate agenda

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says entitlement reform is not on the agenda in 2018, despite what Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and senior Trump administration officials say.

McConnell, speaking at an event sponsored by Axios on Thursday, said the lack of Democratic support for entitlement reform makes it highly unlikely that it will move through the Senate in an election year.

“I think the Democrats are not going to be interested in entitlement reform so I would not expect to see that on the agenda,” McConnell said.

Read more here.

What we’re reading

Testing for tainted marijuana challenges states (Stateline)

Life expectancy in the U.S. is falling — and drug overdose deaths are soaring (Stat)

State by state

Iowa Medicaid provider hit with $1 million in penalties in its final six months (Des Moines Register)

Texas, feds agree to renew Medicaid funds for safety net hospitals (Texas Tribune)

Health officials expect Minnesota flu cases to rise (Star Tribune)

From The Hill’s opinion pages 

Congress, don’t go home without preserving community health centers

Pharmacy benefit managers should share more drug company discounts to consumers

ObamaCare takes away any gains from tax reform