President Obama wants to double down on state efforts to reform the medical liability system in the upcoming fiscal year, but he is avoiding proposals for substantial policy changes as Republicans are charging forward on the issue, according to a White House budget summary.

The massive healthcare reform law passed last year included $250 million over five years in demonstration grants to states to develop and implement alternatives for current medical liability reform. Grants were supposed to start during fiscal 2011, but the reform law passed after the president’s budget recommendation last year, and Congress never approved a budget bill for fiscal 2011.

The president’s budget request, detailed Monday morning, asks for $100 million to kick start the demonstration grants in fiscal 2012, followed by $50 million for each fiscal year through 2015.

The request comes as Republicans are pitching tort reform as their major – and so far, most defined – feature of efforts to replace the president’s healthcare reform law. Their bill would impose a $250,000 cap on noneconomic medical malpractice damages and set new timeframes for filing lawsuits.

Republicans may use legislation funding the government the rest of this fiscal year also as a vehicle to defund implementation of healthcare reform, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Monday.

Boehner said there's "been a lot of discussion" about possibly adding to the GOP's continuing resolution an amendment that would end any automatic funding to implement President Obama's new health reform law. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has been a chief proponent of one such measure.

"I expect that there will be a lot of amendments, and there's been a lot of discussion about that particular amendment," Boehner said on conservative pundit Laura Ingraham's radio show.

House Republicans are expected to vote on a measure funding the government the rest of this year -- a "continuing resolution" (CR) -- that slashes $100 billion in spending the rest of this year. The cuts go even deeper than Boehner and the GOP leadership had sought, after they caught flack from many conservatives in the House who worried the bill didn't measure up to pledges made during last fall's election.

The CR is already expected to face a difficult time in the Democratic-held Senate, and the King amendment could add to the risk that the upper chamber or Obama would reject it. Still, Boehner has pledged an "open" amendment process in coming spending debates, opening the door to the conservative rank-and-file adding the King measure to the bill.

"We're going to do everything that we can in this bill to make sure there's no money in Obamacare," Boehner explained. "Within the rules of debate, over a bill like this, we're going to do everything we can to make sure there's no money."

Updated 11:18 a.m.

President Obama's 2012 budget proposal squeezes healthcare payments for a broad cross-section of medical providers.

His fiscal commission called healthcare spending the nation’s “single largest fiscal challenge” and Republicans are angling to defund the law.

The broad desire in Congress to repeal widely hated tax reporting language in last year's healthcare law may yet run into a procedural hurdle in the coming weeks: the House/Senate reconciliation process.

According to a committee spokesman, the House Ways & Means Committee intends to mark up legislation next week to repeal the so-called 1099 language. That language requires companies and other entities to file 1099 forms with the IRS for all goods and services transactions valued at $600 or more.

But while a Ways & Means markup will move the repeal bill along, it's not yet clear whether the bill would move on its own, or be attached to some other bill.

Dems claim legislation prohibiting federal funding of abortion doesn't have the statement of constitutional authority required under GOP rules.

Republicans should shut down the government if necessary in order to defund the healthcare reform law, a major opponent of the overhaul urged lawmakers on Friday.

With a showdown looming over the spending bill to keep the government running past March 4, some Republicans are wary of allowing the government to shut down over their desire to defund healthcare reform. But the DefundIt.org memo sent to members of Congress opposing the law said they should stand their ground, arguing that they wouldn’t take the blame for the shutdown.

“Senate Democrats would be the ones shutting down the government,” the memo said. “House Republicans can give them all the appropriations they need to run federal operations, besides that for ObamaCare.”

Mitt Romney largely avoided mentioning healthcare during his address to conservative activists Friday in Washington.

Romney offered a sweeping critique of President Obama’s policies in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but almost entirely avoided references to Obama’s biggest legislative victory, which conservatives want repealed.

Many of those addressing the conference have talked of the need to repeal “ObamaCare,” the name adopted by conservatives for the healthcare law.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Ways and Means Health subcommittee reintroduced a bill Friday strengthening efforts to combat Medicare fraud.

The bill, introduced by subcommittee Chairman Wally Herger (R-Calif.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), would allow the health department to ban corporate executives from Medicare if their companies were convicted of fraud after they left the company. The feds could also exclude parent companies that commit fraud through shell companies.

The bill passed the House by voice vote last Congress, but an anonymous Senate hold kept it from progressing in the upper chamber.

"It is essential that we close loopholes that make widespread Medicare fraud possible by allowing these criminals a second chance to commit fraud," Herger said. "Medicare is already on an unsustainable path, and we must make every effort to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted, to ensure that loopholes in the law do not allow hard-earned taxpayer dollars to go to waste."

"I hope that this year we can finally pass these important anti-fraud measures into law," Stark said.