Congress is on a home work period this week for Presidents’ Day. Here’s a link to the Week in Congress’s report on last week’s actions on Capitol Hill.

Govexec.com updates us on when federal employees can expect their 1.9% pay increase for 2019 to kick in.  Due to red tape, “it could take weeks for federal workers to see the retroactive raise in their bank accounts.”

Federal News Network reports that new federal retirements are trending up. “Nearly 12,000 more federal employees retired in 2018 compared to 2017, according to a Federal News Network analysis of the past year’s data from the Office of Personnel Management.”  A good economy does encourage people to make job changes.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a five year pilot expansion of Medicare ambulance coverage to include non-emergency transportation. The pilot scheduled to begin next year aligns with private sector health plan efforts to team up with Uber or Lyft to provide members with non-emergency transportation to urgent care centers and doctor’s offices. Healthcare Dive reports on this development here.