Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he will try to end debate Monday on a bill providing healthcare benefits and compensation to sick Ground Zero workers.

Reid said he will file cloture on the motion to proceed with the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which will provide $7.4 billion over the next 10 years to first responders to the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

The Senate would need just one Republican to vote for cloture to bring the bill to a final vote.

The Medicare payment advisory panel is warning that accountable care organizations (ACOs), boosted by the new healthcare reform law, might face public backlash similar to what managed care organizations experienced in the 1990s.

The reform law provides incentives to ACOs — groups of providers and hospitals that coordinate efficient and quality care to a certain set of Medicare patients.

However, prior history shows that patients felt forced into managed care by their employers without seeing any benefits from the change, and some doctors who opposed the organizations helped stoke patients’ fears, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) wrote in a letter to the Medicare chief last week.

Legislative changes may be necessary to provide incentives, such as reduced beneficiary cost sharing or providing a share of the savings, to help beneficiaries accept ACOs, MedPAC wrote. Further, Medicare should allow beneficiaries the choice to switch from an assigned primary care provider to another provider who is not in an ACO, it said.

Meanwhile, physician and hospital groups said the government needs to create explicit safe harbors from antitrust enforcement and anti-kickback laws. The American Medical Association asserted that current laws and guidelines favor hospital-based systems with employed physicians, as opposed to small, independent physician practices.

The Department of Justice told a House judiciary subcommittee last week that it intends to offer expedited guidance to ensure that providers can form ACOs compliant with antitrust laws.

Wisconsin’s top lawyer may bring a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal healthcare reform law, according to The Associated Press.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen told the AP he hasn’t decided whether Wisconsin will file a new lawsuit or join the Florida challenge filed by 20 states. He has about a month to decide, because he must wait until the new governor takes office on Jan. 3.

Last week, a federal judge rejected another challenge to the healthcare reform law, marking the second time the law’s mandate that people buy insurance has been ruled constitutional. Liberty University had challenged that the law violates the First Amendment by requiring people to buy insurance that cover abortions.

Oral arguments in the Florida case are scheduled for Dec. 16.

Congress will work quickly this week to try to pass a food-safety bill for a second time, after the version approved by the Senate was thrown out because of a technical error.
 
The Senate bill had passed 73-25. It creates fees, violating a constitutional requirement that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. This means opponents will have a second chance at holding it up before the lame-duck session expires.
 
Congress will also look to pay for a yearlong fix to the Medicare payment system after approving a monthlong patch earlier this week. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said they are committed to finding a yearlong solution to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, which determines Medicare payments to physicians. Without the projected $17 billion “doc fix,” physicians face a 25 percent reduction in payments starting Jan. 1.
 
Nursing home advocates are still hoping the Senate will repeal the delay of a Medicare payment system for nursing homes. The House already approved it.
 
Also, the Senate is under pressure to quickly pass legislation providing healthcare for the first responders at the scene of the 9/11 attacks in New York. The House passed the $7.4 billion bill, 268-160, in September.
 
House committee chairmanship elections are expected Tuesday. One of the most contentious races is for the gavel of the Energy and Commerce panel, which has jurisdiction over health policy. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the favorite; the current ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), needs a term-limit waiver. Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) are also running.
 
Off Capitol Hill, on Monday, the Center for American Progress will discuss the socioeconomic effects of the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition of Medicaid funding for most abortions. Panelists include the CEO of Black Women for Reproductive Justice and the director of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
 
On Thursday, the American Constitution Society will host a panel of law and bioethics experts to discuss whether the Constitution protects the right of a competent, terminally ill individual to choose assistance in dying.
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Influence Vaccination Week starts Monday, providing healthcare professionals an opportunity to promote flu vaccination before the typical winter spike in flu activity. Three strands of flu are expected this year, including last year’s dreaded H1N1 pandemic strain.

Sen. Roger Wicker's (R-Miss.) bill would allow state officials to challenge federal regulations before they go into effect.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) has vowed to block Michele Leonhart’s nomination unless the agency bends to his wishes.

The Texas health department chief shot down the Republican governor’s suggestion that it may cancel its Medicaid coverage, saying the state is “very dependent” on federal assistance for covering poor people, according to the Associated Press.

Gov. Rick Perry raised the possibility that Texas would opt out of Medicaid, which covers more than 3 million in his state, during a CNN interview last month when he claimed the new healthcare reform law would increase his state’s Medicaid obligation by $2.7 billion per year over the next decade.

However, Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs said that talk of Texas opting out of the federal program has been blown out of proportion.

“What's getting lost is the need to reinvent Medicaid, not getting out of Medicaid," he told the AP.

A new state health department report this week reported that Medicaid accounts for 15 percent of personal healthcare spending in Texas, pays for more than half of all births and helps two-thirds of nursing home residents, the AP said.

A liberal group is hitting back against an incoming Republican congressman's promise to forego congressional health benefits, pointing out that he already receives government health insurance as a retired military officer.

Rep.-elect Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who campaigned on repealing the new healthcare reform law, announced on his blog Friday morning that he will decline insurance available to members of Congress. “This is one substantial way I can show that my commitment to the people of eastern and southern Ohio is to help them, not to gain exclusive benefits for myself," he wrote.

However, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) said Johnson's campaign against government-run healthcare falls flat, pointing to a local news report that said Johnson already receives government insurance as a retired Air Force officer.

"Bill Johnson has piously announced that he will forgo the government-health care he can receive as a newly elected congressman — but that's because he can take the government-sponsored health care for retired military people," HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome said in a statement Friday afternoon. "Apparently, he misses the point about the hypocrisy."

Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor-elect, wrote to President Obama this week requesting maximum state flexibility in meeting the healthcare reform law's coverage requirements.

"As you might know, I raised major concerns about the (healthcare reform law) especially with respect to the individual federal mandate provision," the letter states. "However, it is my hope that your administration will allow Wisconsin to take a free-market, consumer driven system approach under the health care exchange provisions of the federal act."

The letter comes as Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) are pushing legislation that would allow states to ignore the individual mandate and other provisions of the law as long as they cover at least as many people, at least as well and as cheaply as required by the law.