In the News:

The Next Sequester Victors?
By Darren Samuelsohn and David Nather | Politico | May 1, 2013

IRS Proposed Rule Outlines Coverage Requirements for Employers
By Rebecca Adams | CQ HealthBeat | May 1, 2013

Medicare Cost-Cutting Board Not Needed Yet, CMS Says
By Melissa Attias | CQ Roll Call | May 1, 2013

DARPA Seeks 'Far Out' Ideas for Mobile Networks
By Bob Brewin | Nextgov | May 1, 2013

Former CIA Director Petraeus Accepts Teaching Post at USC
By Meghashyam Mali | The Hill | May 2, 2013

The Next Sequester Victors?

By Darren Samuelsohn and David Nather | Politico | May 1, 2013

Congress and President Barack Obama spared the FAA from the full brunt of sequester, sending a clear message: We're willing to cave. Now advocates for other agencies and programs are lining up by the newly opened door, looking for fixes to their own across-the-board budget cut woes. Scientists also fret that sequestration is forcing greater competition for limited money as more than $1 billion gets cut from federal organizations funding research, with a particular hit on grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation. Cut too much, they say, and the U.S. may miss out on critical discoveries and lose experts to foreign competition. Democrats and Republicans tried to restore NIH funding during debate on the House and Senate budget resolutions, though they haven't yet had much luck turning that push into law. But they do have a powerful ally in Obama, who took aim at sequestration's hit on research during a visit Monday to The National Academy of Sciences's annual meeting. MORE

IRS Proposed Rule Outlines Coverage Requirements for Employers

By Rebecca Adams | CQ HealthBeat | May 1, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is expected to publish a proposed rule on Friday that provides more information about the type of health coverage employers must offer in order to comply with the health care law. The proposed rule, which the agency released before formally publishing it in the Federal Register, builds on previous regulations. It spells out several designs of health insurance plans that employers can use as a model to make sure that the coverage they are offering is sufficient to meet the requirements under the overhaul. The health care law says that employers can be penalized if they don't offer insurance that covers at least 60 percent of costs and if one of their workers gets tax-subsidized coverage in the new exchanges. The rule lays out several types of insurance plan designs that federal officials will consider "safe harbors" so that employers will know that the insurance they carry complies with the law if it mirrors those plans.

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Medicare Cost-Cutting Board Not Needed Yet, CMS Says

By Melissa Attias | CQ Roll Call | May 1, 2013

A controversial board established by the health care law will not have to recommend cuts to Medicare next year, according to the top actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The trigger for the Independent Payment Advisory Board to submit a proposal was not expected to be met, and President Barack Obama has yet to nominate any members for the panel. But a letter sent Tuesday to CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner marks the first annual deadline for determining whether the board will come into play. While the law requires the chief actuary to make a determination by April 30, the letter notes that this year's calculations will be updated once the 2013 Medicare Trustees' Report is released. The methods and assumptions used in Obama's fiscal 2014 budget request were the basis for the determination that Acting Chief Actuary Paul Spitalnic released Tuesday. Future determinations will also come from the system used in the trustees' report, the letter said.

*** CQ Roll Call is available to subscribers only.

DARPA Seeks 'Far Out' Ideas for Mobile Networks

By Bob Brewin | Nextgov | May 1, 2013      

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants "far out" ideas to improve mobile wireless networks, and those ideas should not rely on Internet protocols to relay data between nodes. DARPA, in a notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website Tuesday, said it and other government research organizations want to develop Mobile Ad-hoc Networks software that can scale to between 1,000 and 5,000 nodes. This is likely to be a challenge, as DARPA said "it is difficult to field a MANET with 50 nodes." The Army has tested small scale mobile ad-hoc networks at its ongoing Network Integration Evaluation exercises at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., for the past three years. But DARPA said previous work focused on attempts to extend the Internet into the ad hoc networks. It is asking researchers to take a "completely different tack" based on "a postulate ... that the MANET environment is fundamentally incompatible with underlying concepts of the Internet . . ." MORE

Former CIA Director Petraeus Accepts Teaching Post at USC

By Meghashyam Mali | The Hill | May 2, 2013

Former CIA Director David Petraeus will assume a part-time teaching post at the University of Southern California, the school announced on Thursday. Petraeus, who served as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming the nation's top spy, will teach seminars on foreign relations, government and leadership, holding the title of Judge Widney Professor, a position in honor of one of the school's founders. He will also serve as a mentor to student veterans on campus and as an adviser to the school's Reserve Officer Training Corps members. MORE