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In a blow to health insurers, the House on Thursday passed a $1.3 trillion, two-year omnibus spending bill that didn't include funding for cost-sharing reduction payments or a federal reinsurance program. Insurers had been lobbying hard to get something included in the massive spending bill. Absent that lifeline, insurers will likely be raising premiums and rethinking their participation in the individual market in 2019. The omnibus bill, which the Senate must pass by midnight on Friday to avoid a government shutdown, marks what most feel was a final shot at passing measures to bring down premiums in the individual market before plans must decide where to sell and how to price coverage next year. (Livingston, 3/22)

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said Thursday "there will be a vote" on a GOP bill to lower ObamaCare premiums. Cornyn would not say whether the vote would come as an amendment to the must-pass government funding bill or as a stand-alone measure. (Sullivan, 3/22)

A proposal to allow the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation to sell plans that don’t meet Obamacare’s coverage requirements has cleared the Senate and looks poised to become law. It’s a lot like the Tennessee farm plans, which have been around a lot longer than the Affordable Care Act and aren’t subject to its rules because they aren’t classified as insurance under state law. (Demko, 3/22)

Centene Corp. still hasn’t fixed problems in Washington that led the state to briefly bar the health insurer from selling Obamacare plans, the insurance regulator there said Thursday. Washington will fine Centene’s Coordinated Care unit $100,000 for not complying with a December agreement to boost coverage of physicians such as anesthesiologists, Steve Valandra, deputy commissioner for public affairs at the state’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner, said by phone. (Tracer, 3/22)