What's next in health care for the new speaker

Here's what's waiting:

Appropriations: The House has passed four of the 12 appropriations bills, mostly along partisan lines, but not the ones funding the major health agencies.

• If lawmakers go bill-by-bill rather than bundling them into an omnibus, the Agriculture-FDA measure will be particularly challenging.
• It failed on the House floor in September, in part because of a controversial policy rider that would have restricted the abortion pill mifepristone, a non-starter for moderate Republicans.
• Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn't remove the language, and it remains to be seen whether a new speaker would.

The Labor-HHS bill, meanwhile, is still stuck in committee and contains language that would strip funding from Planned Parenthood.

• An appropriations calendar that was circulating before McCarthy's ouster had Labor-HHS scheduled as the last spending bill to go to the floor.

Rep. Byron Donalds told reporters there were questions among members about the appropriations endgame, because it's intertwined with the speakership fight.

• "What is going to be the strategy for getting through the appropriations process? Are we going to finish our bills? How are we going to start negotiations with the Senate?" Donalds said.

Community health centers: Federal funding for these got a temporary extension in the CR but could expire on Nov. 17 along with workforce programs like graduate medical education.

• Although the centers have bipartisan support, backers are worried about the short-term funding patches and lack of certainty, which they say make it harder to retain health workers.
• There are also questions about levels of funding. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Roger Marshall are pushing for a more ambitious increase than the modest bump in the House.
• The centers "are trying to hire doctors and nurses and plan services for 31 million patients and that's tough to do when you don't know if the funding will be there after next month," said Nicholas Widmeyer, director of federal affairs for the National Association of Community Health Centers.

House transparency bill: Price transparency measures on hospitals and PBMs were among the items that had been packaged with community health centers, in part to offset new spending.

• This bill was supposed to come to the floor last month but was abruptly pulled amid the drama over funding the government. Then came the chaos over the speaker.

• If the package is revived, it may have to go through the Rules Committee and the amendment process, which would add time.
• The package does have bipartisan backing, offering an early test of whether the chamber can work together on health policy.

PAHPA and PEPFAR Reauthorization: Both the Pandemic All Hazards Preparedness Act and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief programs' reauthorizations expired Sept. 30, and the House and Senate remain far apart on details of renewing both programs.

• Though they'll continue to be funded through the appropriations process, a few provisions expired, such as a priority review voucher program in PAHPA. The CR extended PAHPA authorities to respond to disasters, but it's an open question what else gets extended.
• Like appropriations, the House's PAHPA package was partisan and the Senate's bipartisan, with the difference mostly focused on how to address drug shortages. Working that out hardly seems like a priority with unfinished appropriations bills to get through.

The State-Foreign Ops bill that passed the House in September contained a one-year reauthorization for PEPFAR. It also had antiabortion provisions, including an expanded Mexico City policy, and it cut funding to family planning programs.

• The Senate will likely want PEPFAR to be extended for longer than a year (it's always been reauthorized for five) and oppose the antiabortion measures.