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Health-care companies are making a last-minute push to delay ObamaCare taxes as part of a year-end government funding deal, but they face resistance from Democrats who want to punt the issue until next year when they control the House. Powerful health-care lobbies are pushing lawmakers to delay the implementation of the taxes, worried about taking a financial hit. Lawmakers have voted to push off the health law’s medical device tax, health insurance tax, and tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health plans in the past with bipartisan support. (Sullivan, 12/13)

Gov. Chris Sununu is leading 11 Republican governors to urge Congress to repeal two Obamacare health taxes that they say are raising premiums, hoping to capitalize on a dwindling lame-duck session before Democrats retake the House. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan sent Wednesday, the governors asked lawmakers to abolish the Health Insurance Premium Tax (HIT) and the Medical Device Tax (MDT) from the Affordable Healthcare Act. (DeWitt, 12/12)

Congress moved a big step closer on Tuesday toward addressing one of the most fundamental problems underlying the maternal mortality crisis in the United States: the shortage of reliable data about what kills American mothers. The House of Representatives unanimously approved H.R. 1318, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, to help states improve how they track and investigate deaths of expectant and new mothers. (Martin, 12/12)

An incoming Republican Congressman told constituents at a town hall this week that he believes vaccines may cause autism, contradicting the Centers for Disease Control and other scientific institutions, according to tennessean.com. Mark Green, a physician who won his race in November to fill the seat of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), vowed to "stand on the CDC's desk and get the real data on vaccines,"adding he was doing so "because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines," according to tennessean.com. (Hellmann, 12/12)

Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch has backed off plans to publicly challenge a Trump administration proposal to change how Medicare pays for certain drugs after White House and top HHS officials urged Senate Republicans to give them more time. Hatch floated sending a letter criticizing the way the controversial plan would bypass Congress and link some Medicare drug payments to lower prices in other developed countries, lawmakers and sources familiar with the effort told POLITICO. (Cancryn and Karlin-Smith, 12/12)

The Farm Bill, one of the most important pieces of federal legislation to millions of Texans, successfully made its way through both chambers of Congress this week and awaits the signature of President Donald Trump. Formally known as the Agriculture and Nutrition Act, the Farm Bill is a massive spending package that will deliver $867 billion over 10 years to subsidize farming and nutrition. (Eversden and Livingston, 12/12)