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A highly anticipated meeting scheduled for Friday between President Biden and congressional leaders to chart a path forward on lifting the debt ceiling was postponed until next week, officials said. The delay will give White House and congressional staff more time to make progress in their closed-door spending talks, the officials said, adding that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) was unable to attend the Friday meeting because of a scheduling conflict. (Restuccia, Andrews and Harrison, 5/11)

The Republican proposal to require people to work in order to receive Medicaid benefits poses an existential question about the very nature of government assistance: Do you need to do something to earn it? For years, the GOP’s answer has been yes, some people should. These days, they have very specific people in mind: The 19 million Americans, most of them childless and nondisabled adults, who were not eligible for Medicaid until the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility a decade ago. (Scott, 5/12)

A sustained breach of the debt ceiling would have a catastrophic impact on the country’s healthcare system, experts say, with the fallout reaching beyond government insurance programs like Medicare to the millions of Americans with private coverage. ... “Ultimately, if the federal government can’t pay the bills, the entire thing stops,” said Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University. “The whole health system collapses.” (O'Brien, 5/12)

As leaders in Washington fail to make progress on a debt ceiling deal, Moody’s Analytics is warning of disastrous implications for American jobs if the United States defaults on its debt for an extended period. ... While most states would be “hit hard” by a debt limit breach, the economic pain would vary from state to state, according to projections released on Wednesday by Moody’s. It would disproportionately hurt states with large concentrations of federal workers or that have a number of jobs that rely on government funding. That includes Washington, DC, and states located near or that rely on federal institutions such as national labs or military bases such as Alaska, Hawaii and New Mexico. (Egan, 5/11)

�������ýҕ�l Health News: ‘A System In Crisis’: Dysfunctional Federal Disability Programs Force The Poor To Pass Up Money 

Brenda Powell had suffered a stroke and was in debilitating pain when she called the Social Security Administration last year to seek disability benefits. The former Louisiana state office worker struggled at times to write her name or carry a glass of water. Powell, then 62, believed she could no longer work, and she was worried about how to pay for medical care with only a $433 monthly pension. (Clasen-Kelly, 5/12)