Gregg's Top Three Health Policy Articles

If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

Politico: In A First, Medicare Has Set Prices For 10 Drugs, Saving Billions
The Biden administration on Thursday released the results of the first Medicare drug price negotiations, a milestone in Democrats’ decades long quest to have the nation’s largest payer use its leverage to lower prescription drug prices. The result is a $6 billion savings across 10 drugs when new prices take effect in 2026, according to the White House, and beneficiaries will save roughly $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. “Empowering Medicare to negotiate prices not only strengthens the program for generations to come, but also puts a check on skyrocketing drug prices,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. (King, 8/15)

Politico: Biden Admin To Spend Billions To Blunt Spike In Medicare Drug Premiums One of President Joe Biden’s signature domestic achievements is set to cause a significant spike in Medicare premiums for millions of Americans just ahead of the November election. Now, his administration is preparing to dole out billions of dollars to private insurance companies to blunt the impact of the increase. The jump in premiums is a consequence of efforts to reduce what older Americans pay for prescription drugs, part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Insurance companies are on the hook for what patients used to pay and are raising drug plan premiums to make up the difference. (King and Lim, 8/13)

Modern Healthcare: Employer Health Plan Costs Expected To Rise 9% In 2025: Aon Employer-sponsored health plan costs are expected to rise 9% in 2025, totaling more than $16,000 per employee before cost-saving measures, according to professional services and consulting company Aon. Aon predicts that demand for prescription drugs such as glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists and growth in medical claims for high-cost treatments such as gene and cell therapies are among the main drivers of rising costs for employers. (DeSilva, 8/15)

For a Deeper Dive...

AP: Schumer Says He Will Work To Block Any Effort In The Senate To Significantly Cut The CDC's Budget The Senate’s top Democrat said Sunday he will work to block a plan that would significantly cut the proposed budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning that such a spending reduction could endanger the public. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York told The Associated Press he would block legislation from passing the Senate if it were to include the proposed cut. Democrats said the proposal in a House bill includes a reduction of the CDC’s proposed budget by $1.8 billion, or about 22%, that would harm public health. The Republican-led effort also would mean a major cut in programs designed to address firearm injuries and opioid overdose prevention. (8/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Exclusive: Medicare’s Drug-Price Talks Are About To Get More Heated Companies and officials are already preparing for negotiations over more drugs that could take a bigger bite out of high drug costs, and possibly their bottom lines. Next up are prices of 15 more drugs the government will identify by Feb 1. The two sides are also fighting over how the talks should work. Among the drug industry’s demands: clarity on how CMS determines the price of a drug. Drug companies are also fighting the agency’s potential changes for next year, including possibly cutting back the number of in-person meetings to fewer than three. (Hopkins, Loftus and Walker, 8/16)

CNN: Kamala Harris’ Complicated History With Medicare For All Becomes A Trump Campaign Attack Line Kamala Harris may be done with Medicare for All, but Medicare for All – with a new nudge from former President Donald Trump – isn’t done with her. The Trump campaign on Wednesday attacked Harris over her past support for a move to the single-payer, government-run health care system long championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Medicare for All gained broad support among progressive Democrats, especially those with eyes on the White House, before and during the early stages of the party’s 2020 presidential primary. (Krieg and Luhby, 8/14)

KFF Health News: Amid Medicaid ‘Unwinding,’ Many States Wind Up Expansions Trisha Byers left behind one crucial item when she moved to North Carolina last year to be closer to her family after suffering a brain injury: health insurance. In Massachusetts, Byers, 39, was enrolled in Medicaid, the government health program that covers low-income people. But she was ineligible in North Carolina, which had not yet expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. She said she racked up thousands of dollars in unpaid emergency room bills while uninsured for several months after her move. (Galewitz, 8/16)

USA Today: FDA Rejects Psychedelic Drug MDMA For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder The Food and Drug Administration on Friday rejected a California drug company's request to market the psychedelic drug MDMA combined with talk therapy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The federal drug regulator told San Jose, California-based Lykos Therapeutics it completed a review of the company's application but would not approve MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, as a treatment for PTSD. (Alltucker, 8/9)

KFF Health News: New Lines Of Attack Form Against The Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act is back under attack. Not as in the repeal-and-replace debates of yore, but in a fresher take from Republican lawmakers who say key parts of the ACA cost taxpayers too much and provide incentive for fraud. Several House Republican leaders have called on two watchdog agencies to investigate, while Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) fired off more than half a dozen questions in a recent letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (Appleby, 8/15)

The Hill: 5 Takeaways From First Medicare Drug Price Negotiations Drugmakers have said the process was not a legitimate negotiation, but all of them agreed to participate, and none pulled their drugs from the Medicare program. “The negotiations were comprehensive. They were intense. It took both sides to reach a good deal,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said of the talks. Federal officials held three meetings with each participating drug company to discuss the offers and counteroffers and attempt to arrive at what officials said was a “mutually acceptable price” for the drug. (Weixel and Choi, 8/16)

The Washington Post: Kamala Harris Unveils 2024 Policy Agenda, Including $6,000 Child Tax Credit For Baby’s First Year Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday unveiled an aggressively populist economic agenda, providing the most detailed vision yet of her governing priorities since becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. The most striking proposals were for the elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans; the “first-ever” ban on price gouging for groceries and food; a cap on prescription drug costs; a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers; and a child tax credit that would provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life. (Stein and Diamond, 8/16)

Bloomberg: CVS Court Defeat Shows Ways Drug Middlemen Try To Influence Health Care A recent court defeat for CVS Health Corp. is shining a light on how health-care corporations wield their financial might over doctors and pharmacies in ways that can put profits over patient care. With more than a dozen similar cases still pending in private arbitration, the pharmacy giant has millions of dollars on the line. (Tozzi, 8/15)

Healthcare Dive: Nonprofits’ Cash On Hand Hit 10-Year Low In 2023: Report U.S. nonprofit hospitals and health systems’ median days of cash on hand hit a 10-year low in 2023, falling below 200 days for the first time in a decade, according to a report from S&P Global Ratings. Cash flow did not meaningfully improve from 2022 to 2023, the report said. However, operating expenses grew only modestly at 5%, following a steep 17% growth rate in 2022. (Vogel, 8/12)

You Might Also Enjoy...

For the Visual Among Us...

A few years ago I started a weekly e-mail for friends and colleagues who want to keep up on major federal health policy developments but did not have time to plod through all the minutiae--they were busy doing important things like running organizations and taking care of patients! Much to my surprise, it became pretty popular. I have now converted to a weekly newsletter format so you can manage your own subscription preferences and forward to others that might be interested.

These summaries represent my judgement on health policy issues that may not on the front pages, but are relevant to clinicians, administrators, and educators. I monitor many news sources and clipping services to identify content for this newsletter and I try hard to be as factual, balanced, and non-partisan as possible. While the articles are written by others (with credit attributed), the choice of what to include is entirely mine. If you are interested in receiving a daily summary of health policy news, you might consider signing up for the KHN Morning Briefing. If you enjoy podcasts, I suggest What the Health? and Tradeoffs.

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD