News bites: Presidential budget, birth-control politics, and more

President Obama in next week's budget request will propose to reduce spending on Medicare by $248 billion and Medicaid by $72 billion through higher premiums and deductibles and lower payments to drug companies, hospitals and nursing homes, The Wall Street Journal reports.

President Obama overruled Vice President Biden and then-Chief of Staff Bill Daley, both Catholics, and sided with mostly female advisers in his decision to require birth control coverage, Bloomberg reports.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) expressed doubt that a permanent Medicare "doc fix" is within reach, Modern Healthcare reports (subscription required).

Teen pregnancies are at their lowest rate in nearly 40 years, Kaiser Health News reports.

Reducing the average body mass index by just 5 percent could save the U.S. healthcare system more than $29 billion over five years, says the Trust for America's Health.