Welcome to The Hill's evening roundup of the day's health policy news and advance look at tomorrow's schedule.

Monday's health news

Giffords shooting fallout: The weekend shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) has thrown the timing of the healthcare reform repeal vote into question. Few on either side of the debate doubt that the divisive issue will resurface shortly, however.

Republicans made repeal a centerpiece of their platform in the 2010 midterm elections, and many voters expect them to deliver. Democrats, who lost the messaging war last year, view the repeal debate as a golden opportunity to sell the law to the American people.

Even the rhetorical truce is already ending. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) for example has called on Republicans to rename the "Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," arguing that Republicans "have a responsibility to help turn down the temperature on the nation's debate and help restore an element of civility to the discussion." Conservatives for their part have been pushing back against liberal attempts to tie Saturday's shooting to Republican rhetoric. http://bit.ly/hYnpIB

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Congressional budget scorekeepers' cost estimate last week of a bill to repeal healthcare reform is raising new doubts about the GOP's ability to defund it.

The Democrats' bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, contains about $106 billion in authorizations that still need to be appropriated. But $86 billion of that, the CBO said in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), is for continuation of existing activities, such as programs of the Indian Health Service and Federally Qualified Health Centers. 

Republicans may well want to keep funding even if the law is repealed, and CBO writes that "repeal of those ... authorizations would not necessarily result in discretionary savings of that amount." 

The repeal vote was postponed after the Arizona shootings, but Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers says it remains a top priority.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) acknowledged that Democrats have the numbers in the Senate to block any attempt to repeal healthcare reform.

"They've got the numbers," the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference said on CNN's "State of the Union." "If they all vote not to repeal, there won't be repeal."

However, he expects near-unanimous if not completely unanimous support for repeal from the 47 Republicans in the Senate.

"My sense is that Republicans will almost all, if not all, vote to repeal the healthcare law," he said.

Appearing alongside Alexander, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he thought a complete healthcare repeal did not have a chance of passage in the Senate.

However, he did expect a change to be made in the so-called 1099 provision of hte law, which imposes an additional tax filing requirement on small businesses for transactions of more than $600.

"I think there will be a change in the 1099 provision, he said.

Repealing healthcare reform was a major campaign promise by Republicans, and was slated to be one of the first steps taken by the new GOP-controlled House. A vote was originally scheduled for Jan. 12, but GOP leaders postponed its consideration following the shooting Saturday of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

While legislative business is on hold following the shooting, Alexander expects lawmakers to get back to its regular work shortly.

"We need to stop, pause and reflect," he said. "Then I think we're back to business."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that he is in "constant communication" with congressional leaders.

Democrats and Republicans have sharpened their messages on the healthcare reform law as House Republicans prepare to repeal the overhaul next week.

The Medicare agency on Friday issued a proposed rule spelling out how hospitals will be rewarded for providing high-quality care for patients, as required by Democrats' healthcare reform law. Under the program, known as value-based purchasing, hospitals that perform well on measures relating to quality of care and patient experience would get higher Medicare payments.

"Today's proposal is a huge leap forward in improving the quality and safety of America’s hospitals for both Medicare beneficiaries and all Americans," Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Donald Berwick said in a statement. "The hospital value-based purchasing program will reward hospitals for improving patients' experiences of care, while making care safer by reducing medical mistakes."

Blair Childs, senior vice president for the Premier healthcare alliance, immediately praised the development in a statement Friday afternoon.

"The Premier healthcare alliance learned firsthand through [its] Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) pilot project that a well-designed value-based purchasing program can achieve better outcomes for patients," he said.

"We are eager to see these results spread nationwide as all hospitals receive added incentives to improve the quality and reliability of care."

The new program is set to start in 2013. CMS is accepting comments until March 8 and will issue a final rule next year.

Republican governors and governors-elect from 33 states are calling on the Obama administration and congressional leaders to relax Medicaid enrollment requirements included in the healthcare reform law.

The governors said in a Friday letter that the law prevents the states from managing Medicaid programs for their "unique Medicaid populations."
 
The “maintenance of effort” provision prevents states from making changes to Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility that result in lost coverage for someone eligible on March 23, 2010. States breaking the provision may lose all of their federal funding for Medicaid at a time when states are struggling to balance massive budget deficits.

“Every Governor, Republican and Democrat, will face unprecedented budget challenges in the coming months,” the governors wrote. “Efforts by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to regulate state operations impose greater uncertainty on our budgets for oncoming years and create a perfect storm when coupled with the current state of the economy.”

A national physicians group supporting a single-payer healthcare system announced Friday it opposes GOP plans to repeal the healthcare reform law.

“We reject the call by Republican leaders to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), even as we recognize the new law is incapable of resolving our health care morass,” Dr. Garrett Adams, president of the Physicians for a National Health Program, said in a statement Friday afternoon.

The group said healthcare reform's "modest" benefits are worth saving now that they are law, and they criticized Republicans for not offering a "serious alternative" to the reform law.