Policy analysts, Democrats, and Republicans dissatisfied with the deal agree: Federal health programs have dodged a budgetary bullet in the Washington showdown over raising the nation's debt ceiling.

A compromise bill — approved in a bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, and approved by the Senate late Thursday — includes some trims and caps on health spending for the next two years.

But the deal spares health programs like Medicaid from the deep cuts approved in April by the Republican-led House. The bill suspends the debt ceiling — the federal government's borrowing limit — until January 1, 2025, after the next presidential election.

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