Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
White House Plan Would Replace Every Lead Water Pipe
President Joe Biden promised his infrastructure proposal would replace every lead pipe in the country. Now the White House says it has a plan to deliver, despite a significant funding gap. The administration鈥檚 plan for lead pipes and paints, which Vice President Kamala Harris will detail in a speech Thursday, illustrates how officials are hoping to cobble together enough money to meet Biden鈥檚 goal through sources like the infrastructure law, Covid relief funding and the president鈥檚 stalled Build Back Better bill. (Lederman, 12/16)
The plan, announced Thursday in a fact sheet, notes that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will 鈥渂egin to develop鈥 new regulations for lead and copper pipes. But, in the meantime, a senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday, a twice-delayed Trump rule concerning lead pipes will be allowed to take effect. 聽(Frazin, 12/16)
And President Biden's social-spending bill might be delayed again 鈥
Democrats privately conceded on Wednesday that they were all but certain to delay consideration of President Biden鈥檚 $2.2 trillion social policy bill in the Senate until 2022, missing a self-imposed Christmas deadline as negotiations with a key centrist holdout, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, sputtered. Private talks this week between Mr. Biden and Mr. Manchin, who is pushing to curtail the scope of the package and shrink its price tag, have failed to resolve crucial differences, according to White House officials and congressional aides. And leading Democrats have yet to complete work on the complex social safety net, climate and tax package. (Cochrane and Tankersley, 12/15)
Democratic negotiations with centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) over President Biden鈥檚 sweeping climate and social spending bill are close to melting down as Manchin appears to be backing out of an earlier deal with the White House to extend the child tax credit for one year. Manchin is now floating the idea of extending the child tax credit for multiple years so that the cost of a proposal that is likely to be extended by Congress in the future is fully reflected in the Build Back Better bill, which is now officially projected to cost roughly $2 trillion over 10 years. (Bolton, 12/15)
