With help from David Pittman (@David_Pittman) and Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202)

NEUTRALITY OVER TODAY?: Today is D-Day for the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality, as the commission votes on a controversial repeal of rules requiring internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally. Health care innovation, some advocates fear, will take a hit: if ISPs begin “throttling” or prioritizing some web traffic over others, that means the well-heeled content providers might just pay to get an advantage. That, in turn, would disadvantage young companies. Health care companies, it’s feared, can’t afford to stay slow — people want their information, and want it now. But the precise implications aren’t exactly clear yet, making this one area to watch.

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Such concerns are even coming from inside the FCC, our Tech colleague Margaret Harding McGill reports. In an email, the commission’s chief technology officer said he was worried about the possibility providers will target specific websites — the exact concern net neutrality proponents cite when advocating for these regulations. But an FCC official says that the final rule addresses those concerns.

— Also on tap: The commission, which meets at 10:30 a.m., will also consider measures to enhance the Rural Health Care Program by raising the $400 million cap on spending, among other policies.

CONGRESS PRESSES ON: In the wake of the Alabama Senate upset, Congress pressed on with its business Wednesday.

— No telemedicine boost in end-of-year funding measure: A funding measure, H.J. Res. 124 (113), designed to keep the government running through Jan. 19 doesn’t include an expected boost for telemedicine in Medicare Advantage plans. Previous versions of the bill allowed Medicare Advantage plans to reimburse telemedicine as a part of their bids, raising hopes among advocates that the government would begin easing restrictions and expanding funding for the mode of care.

But those hopes are, at least at the moment, for naught.

— Taxes: The House and Senate conference committee reached an agreement on a unified version of a tax overhaul bill Wednesday. The new bill will repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, and Republican lawmakers scrapped a provision that would tax grad school tuition waivers. That proposal raised concerns from the American Medical Informatics Association, who sent a letter Tuesday to congressional leadership, arguing that it would hit medical informatics fellows particularly hard.

** A message from Thermo Fisher Scientific: Healthcare is now being delivered more affordably and effectively, and governments, academia, insurers, pharma/biotech manufacturers, clinicians and others are collectively investing trillions in precision medicine to accelerate efforts. Kristin Pothier, global head of life sciences for Parthenon-EY, outlines ways to do this in her new book Personalizing Precision Medicine. Visit thermofisherPM.com **

— Democratic senators: VA needs more money for EHR: Sens. Jon Tester and Brian Schatz, who are ranking members on the Senate Veterans Affairs and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, respectively, think the VA needs much more money to implement its new Cerner EHR, the pair said during a call. Schatz said the department needs $15 billion to both implement Cerner and maintain VistA in the interim, and that will require additional funding, he said.

The problem is particularly acute for the department given money shortages for its private-sector choice program and staffing shortage, Tester said. He indicated the VA committees will not approve an earlier request from VA Secretary David Shulkin for spending flexibility, which would allow the secretary to reroute money to the EHR implementation.

— New senator: Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton selected his lieutenant governor, Tina Smith, to fill the vacancy that will soon be left by Sen. Al Franken after his resignation over allegations of sexual misconduct. Smith doesn’t have a significant eHealth record, but did participate in a round of grants around Minnesota to local broadband projects in November — which included several telemedicine initiatives.

— Health IT Now honors: Health IT Now honored 14 members of Congress for their work in the field Wednesday, including Reps. Diane Black and Doris Matsui, as well as Sens. Rob Portman and Joe Manchin, among others.

eHealth tweet of the day: Jennifer Dennard (@JennDennard) In 2018 I'm thinking telemedicine will finally take off. I know WE all know about it, but my friends/family still give me blank looks when I ask if they use it.

THURSDAY: Apparently 3- to 5-year-olds believe birthday parties cause aging, which is pretty charming and understandable. Tell us about the charming (and understandable) beliefs of your youth at dtahir@politico.com. Air those beliefs publicly on social media to @David_Pittman, @athurallen202, @DariusTahir, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.

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HHS INNOVATION DAY: HHS’s biannual Innovation Day on Wednesday featured presentations from teams developing new tech for the department. One project — smoking cessation team from the National Cancer Institute — used chatbots to increase access to the Smokefree.gov counseling website.

FDA UNVEILS ANTIBIOTIC PRESCRIBING WEBSITE: The FDA on Wednesday launched a website that aims to advise doctors about the most appropriate antibiotic for a patient’s particular condition. Ideally, such advice can cut down on inappropriate prescriptions and combat antibiotic resistance.

Doctors use antimicrobial susceptibility tests to help choose the appropriate drug for a patient’s infection. Drug labels provide information that doctors can use alongside these tests to pick the right drug. But because bacteria and fungi change over time — affecting their response to drugs — and updating a drug label can be a slow process, there has been a delay in the most up-to-date information reaching doctors. A website, of course, can help communicate more rapidly. The new approach was authorized by the 21st Century Cures Act. The FDA’s notes on the project here.

MORE LAWSUITS ON CERNER: When last we encountered EHR company CliniComp, it was suing the Department of Veterans Affairs to protest the department’s decision to award a no-bid contract to Cerner. The company lost that suit (though it’s appealing), and is back with another one — this time naming Cerner directly as the defendant. This suit alleges Cerner is infringing on CliniComp’s patent. You can read the complaint here.

FROM THE STATES: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a prescription drug monitoring program bill into law Wednesday, declaring on Twitter that “‘Doctor-shopping’ for fraudulent opioid prescriptions just got a lot harder.” The bill requires prescribers to register and use the state’s PDMP, effective Jan. 1.

NO MORE PASSWORDS?: The health care cybersecurity nonprofit NH-ISAC and a new partner, Trusona, are trying a new log-on process for the nonprofit’s information-sharing portal. The approach would discard the traditional password — which, of course, has its flaws. The new path is to take a picture of one’s photo ID and have that serve as an individual’s identity verification. Under this approach, an individual takes a picture of the ID each time he or she needs to log on.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING:

China is hoovering up DNA samples from millions of citizens in the country’s Xinjiang region.

Walgreens and NewYork-Presbyterian are partnering on telemedicine kiosks.

A startup wants to democratize CRISPR.

Inside Alphabet’s big, secretive anti-aging startup.

Five charts showing how ACOs are working.

The next phase of digital health innovation is implementation, not invention.

** A message from Thermo Fisher Scientific: Healthcare is now being delivered more affordably and effectively, and governments, academia, insurers, pharma/biotech manufacturers, clinicians and others are collectively investing trillions in precision medicine to accelerate efforts. For its part, Thermo Fisher is aggressively investing in the development of analytical technologies and services to support government-, academia- and industry-led initiatives. These range from population health studies, such as the Saudi Human Genome Project, and translational research, including groundbreaking liquid biopsy studies, to molecular diagnostics for cancer and other diseases and targeted therapies, including an enabling technology that is now part of an FDA-approved CAR-T therapy for certain forms of leukemia. Watch Kristin Pothier, global head of life sciences for Parthenon-EY, discuss similar global efforts as well as takeaways from her new book Personalizing Precision Medicine, which spotlights promising advancements and remaining hurdles on the path to clinical utility and, eventually, universal precision health. Visit thermofisherPM.com **