Top Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday asked for a hearing on Medicare prescription drug rebates after federal investigators said the program could be saving taxpayers millions more.

Republicans' 2003 Medicare Modernization Act bars the federal government from directly negotiating bulk discounts for drugs. The private plans that provide the coverage, however, are supposed to negotiate rebates to lower costs for beneficiaries and the government.

In its first major review of the rebate program, the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday offered a scathing assessment.

"Because of the size of these rebates, it is vital that rebates be reported accurately and that the Government and beneficiaries receive the full benefit of these rebates," wrote Inspector General Daniel Levinson. "Our review identified several concerns about these rebates."

A long-term spending bill pitched by the Senate will not include language to strip federal funds from Planned Parenthood and implementation of the healthcare reform law, according to new highlights released by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday afternoon.

Senate Democrats made their opposition to the defunding provisions official after House Republicans included them in a seven-month continuing resolution (CR) they approved two weeks ago.

"Such language has no place in a bill that is necessary to keep the government operating, and therefore is not included in the Senate version," Appropriations Democrats said.

Both chambers of Congress approved a stopgap two-week spending measure on Wednesday that avoided controversial healthcare measures, but the battle lines are being redrawn over healthcare reform and Planned Parenthood funding.

Shortly after two-week CR passed, anti-abortion groups put pressure on the Senate to include language blocking federal funds for Planned Parenthood in its long-term spending bill. And a handful of House Republicans had actually voted against the two-week CR because it did not block funding for healthcare reform.

More than 1 million anti-abortion activists are demanding that House Republicans stick to their plan to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood in their stop-gap spending bill for the rest of the year.

The Expose Planned Parenthood Coalition said Friday that nearly 1.2 million mailed petitions and e-mails have been sent to lawmakers urging them to retain the ban in their seven-month continuing resolution (CR). The House last month overwhelmingly approved, 240-185, an amendment to the CR that would prohibit such funding, but Democrats have made it clear they object.

"More than one million Americans have stepped forward to send a clear message to our elected leaders: whether pro-life or pro-abortion we do not believe that tax dollars should be used to finance abortion services," Concerned Women of America CEO Penny Nance said in a statement. "The time to permanently end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is now."

Concerned Women for America alone generated 980,000 mailed petitions to the House, the coalition said. And Family Research Council Action, the Susan B. Anthony List and Catholic Advocate List generated 190,000 direct e-mails and petition signatures.

The campaign come as Planned Parenthood on Thursday released polling in key Senate districts showing broad opposition to the prohibition. The poll, conducted by the Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, found that 57 percent of respondents opposed the prohibition while 36 percent approved.

Planned Parenthood says federal funding doesn't pay for abortions but rather pap smears, cervical cancer tests and other life-saving tests. The organization got $363 million in federal, state and local government grants in 2008-2009. 

Its opponents argue the organization carries out more than 320,000 abortions a year — a quarter of the national total — and federal funding helps support clinics where the abortions are performed.

After a highly charged markup, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Thursday that would deny federal funding for abortions.

A federal judge's "clarification" on his ruling that struck down the entire healthcare reform law has put the Obama administration on the clock to file an appeal. U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, who ruled the law unconstitutional in January, said the administration has just seven days to ask either the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court for an expedited review. Read The Hill's story.

If history is any indication, the administration will appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit. The White House so far has seemed content to let the appellate process play out.

Alaska reverses course: Vinson's order had an immediate impact in Alaska. Gov. Sean Parnell (R), who declared the law dead following Vinson's January ruling, said the state will now implement the law.

Parnell in February turned down a federal grant to start planning its health insurance exchange, but he says the state will now make decisions on a "case-by-case basis" whether to use its own funds or accept federal money to implement provisions of the law.

"Our administration will treat the federal health care law as being in place, as we are directed by the judge in the lawsuit to which our state was a party," Parnell said in a statement.

The House joined the Senate on Thursday in voting overwhelmingly to eliminate a wildly unpopular tax reporting requirement in the healthcare reform law, but a disagreement over funding the repeal remains.
 
Lawmakers and the White House agree on scrapping the law’s requirement for businesses to report any purchase of more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year to any individual or corporation. But Thursday’s House vote may not bring the so-called 1099 requirement any closer to being struck down.
 
The House bill offsets the $20 billion cost of repeal by boosting the amount middle-class consumers would have to repay the government for improper payments of tax subsidies for purchasing health insurance on new state exchanges opening in 2014.

Reps. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and Gene Green (D-Texas) are set to introduce legislation Thursday afternoon that increases Medicare drug reimbursements for community oncology clinics.

The so-called "prompt pay" legislation excludes certain discounts extended to wholesalers when calculating Medicare reimbursements and is strongly supported by oncologists. 

Whitfield told The Hill the biggest obstacle would be finding a way to pay for the bill, which hasn't been scored yet. He said he's started looking for a pay-for within the healthcare reform law.

"On any legislation today, you have to find a way to pay for it. And like any legislation, that's an issue with this one," Whitefield said. 

"But to be truthful, because of the oncologist groups and patient groups and others, we think that there may be some provisions in the healthcare bill that passed last year that we may be able to utilize some of those funds for this. All of it's about healthcare, and if we can convince people that this is more important than the others then we can do it."

House Republicans will hold hearings next week to craft legislation that would make it possible to defund the healthcare law.

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday sent a bill denying federal funding for abortion to the full chamber for consideration.

In a 23-14 vote, the panel approved H.R. 3, "The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," on a largely party-line vote. Puerto Rico Del. Pedro Pierluisi was the only Democrat to vote for the bill.

Before sending the measure to the full House, the panel removed a controversial provision that would have redefined rape as "forcible rape," which Democrats on the committee charged was an effort to prevent minors from obtaining abortions.

Republicans had agreed to drop that language shortly after the provision came under intense scrutiny in February.

"I am pleased that public pressure has caused the sponsors to reconsider their extreme position, and that we will have the opportunity to remove those outrageous provisions," Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) said at the mark-up.

During the nearly three-and-a-half-hour meeting, Judiciary Committee members exchanged highly charged barbs over whether the bill would ban abortion outright.

Ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) said "this bill seeks to expand restrictions in current law and to impose an unprecedented penalty — by use of the tax code — on privately funded healthcare choices made by women and their families. Its goal — and effect, if ever enacted — is to make abortion and coverage for abortion services completely unavailable."

Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said the bill would not ban elective abortion.

"H.R. 3 does not ban abortion. It also does not restrict abortions, or abortion coverage in healthcare plans, as long as those abortions or plans use only private or state funds," Smith said.
 
He added that "now is the time for Congress to pass one piece of legislation that prohibits the federal funding of abortions and prohibits the use of fiscal policy to encourage or subsidize abortions."