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Not only did hospitals not get the money they sought in President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure package, they could actually see Medicare payment cuts under the proposal. Under the framework Biden announced alongside Democratic and Republican senators at the WHite House last week, Medicare reimbursement reductions would help cover the legislation's $1.2 trillion cost. The plan would reduce Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers by 2% through at least 2031. (Hellmann, 6/29)

President Biden opened a combination road show and apology tour centered on his bipartisan infrastructure deal on Tuesday in La Crosse, Wis., as he sought to reassure Republicans that he was committed to the agreement he struck last week and convince liberal and centrist Democrats that the compromise had not dimmed his economic ambitions. Mr. Biden praised the $579 billion bipartisan pact, promising it would bring faster internet, less traffic and safer drinking water to Americans in Wisconsin and across the country. In many cases, he promised the same or at least similar benefits that he predicted when rolling out his more ambitious $4 trillion plan earlier this year. (Tankersley, 6/29)

President Biden hailed his infrastructure deal as a job-creating economic boon, while progressive Democrats signaled they would give the president wiggle room on selling the plan, which they want paired with a wide-ranging antipoverty proposal. Mr. Biden visited a transit station in La Crosse, Wis., offering a detailed rundown of the roughly $1 trillion agreement reached with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to modernize aging roads, bridges and broadband networks, eliminate lead from water pipes and build new charging stations for electric vehicles. (Thomas and Peterson, 6/29)

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg argued on Tuesday that the recently brokered bipartisan infrastructure package is “linked” in the lives of Americans with a potentially party-line reconciliation bill being advanced by congressional Democrats. ... “We want to get both [bills] through,” Buttigieg said in an interview on MSNBC. “Because we view them as — in people’s lives, these things are linked, right? You don’t think about your cost of transportation one month, and then the next month, you think about the cost of child care. People are living these things all at the same time, and Congress is dealing with these things all at the same time.” (Forgey, 6/29)