Congress remains in session this week on Capitol Hill. Here’s a link to the Week in Congress’s report on last week’s actions there. Attention will be directed to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday morning as the Committee holds a prescription drug pricing hearing with top five prescription benefit managers appearing as witnesses.

Speaking of prescription drugs, Healthcare Dive reports that the CVS pharmacy chain announced last Thursday that

it has expanded its same-day prescription delivery service to 6,000 CVS Pharmacy locations, for $7.99. The drugstore unit, the retail division of CVS Health, began piloting same-day service in 2017 and has been delivering prescriptions nationwide for about a year, according to a company press release. Delivery, often within an hour, is provided through Target-owned same-day delivery company Shipt.

Here’s a link to the CVS press release.

Also, the Wall Street Journal informs us that

The Trump administration said the federal government would offer a risk-sharing system to reimburse health insurers for financial losses resulting from a proposed ban on certain pharmaceutical-industry rebates in Medicare. 

The backstop on most of insurers’ losses could help prevent premiums from rising significantly as a result of the rebate-rule changes, while making taxpayers responsible for a greater share of cost overruns in Medicare’s prescription-drug program. 

The offer to assume most of the financial risk for the loss of the discounts is a sign the administration is likely to proceed with its push to end rebates, and it could address some critics’ concerns. 

Finally, in other news, Health Payer Intelligence relates that

UnitedHealthcare recently announced that it has invested more than $400 million to address the social determinants of health and increase affordable housing access for people in underserved communities. The healthcare payer has invested in more than 80 affordable-housing communities across the US, with more than 4500 homes for people in need.