Midweek Update

David Ermer–Congress, End of the PHE, NE, NCQA, NIH, OPM, Rx coverage, Telehealth, Uncategorized–
Photo by Michele Orallo on Unsplash

From Capitol Hill —

Roll Call reports

  • “The White House and congressional leaders are discussing the duration of appropriations caps and a debt limit raise as staff talks get underway in advance of the next principals meeting on Friday.
  • “A two-year appropriations deal is under consideration, according to sources familiar with the talks, along the lines of three separate laws since 2015 that were paired with suspensions of the debt limit. 
  • “The White House and top Democrats are pushing for two years of debt limit breathing room, as in the 2019 deal cut with former President Donald Trump. That law contained two years of spending caps, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy pointed out as far back as January.
  • “Such an arrangement would, in theory, remove the threat of fiscal cliffs facing lawmakers and the economy until after the 2024 elections.”

Fierce Healthcare tells us,

  • “The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee convened the heads of three big pharmas—Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen and Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson—as well as the top brass at the three largest PBMs—CVS Health Executive Vice President and President of Pharmacy Services David Joyner, Express Scripts President Adam Kautzner and OptumRx CEO Heather Cianfrocco.
  • “The legislation on the docket for the HELP Committee aims to inject transparency into the pharmaceutical supply chain as well as increase access to generics. PBM reforms on the table include eliminating spread pricing models as well as clawbacks from pharmacies. * * *
  • “The HELP Committee will convene Thursday to mark up four bills that target drug pricing. Sanders said that while these measures are a priority, there’s more work to be done in addressing this issue. He added that issues with affording drugs are a broader part of the ongoing challenges around affordability in healthcare.”

Tomorrow is the last day of the Covid public health emergency, and today the Department of Health and Human Services posted a fact sheet on how the end of the PHE affects telehealth.

From the Rx coverage front, the Wall Street Journal points out

  • “Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended making an oral contraceptive available without a prescription for the first time, potentially widening access to birth control for women across the country. 
  • “The panel of FDA advisers voted 17 to 0 on Wednesday that there was enough evidence for the agency to approve the medication’s sale over-the-counter. The FDA, which is expected to make a final decision this summer, doesn’t have to follow the expert panel’s advice, though it often does.
  • “The FDA approved the pill, called Opill, for prescription use in 1973. HRA Pharma, owned by Perrigo, a Dublin-based generic drugmaker, submitted its application to make Opill available over-the-counter last July. 
  • “The advisory panel said the benefits of making oral contraceptives available over-the-counter outweighed the risks.”

The cost curve is pointing down.

From the medical research front, the National Institutes of Health updates us on multiple mRNA vaccines that show promise for treating HPV-Related cancers.

From the healthcare quality front, NCQA informs us

  • “We launched our Race and Ethnicity Stratification Learning Network.
  • “The network is a free, interactive, online tool that offers data and best practices to help health plans improve how they collect race and ethnicity data on enrollees.
  • Improving data collection of race and ethnicity data is vital to improving health equity.
  • “The data available in this new resource summarize the care of 20 million people enrolled in 14 health plans that reported results on 5 HEDIS measures, stratified by race and ethnicity.
  • “Best practices we identify come from NCQA’s qualitative interviews of key staff at plans in the learning network.
  • “A report groups our findings in three areas.”

Check it out.

From the federal employment front, the Office of Personnel Management announced

  • released proposed regulations that would prohibit the use of previous salary history in setting pay for federal employment offers. Under the new proposed regulations, federal agencies would not be able to consider an applicant’s salary history when setting pay for new federal employees in the General Schedule pay system, Prevailing Rate pay system, Administrative Appeals Judge pay system, and Administrative Law Judge pay system.  
  • “These proposed regulations are a major step forward that will help make the federal government a national leader in pay equity,” said OPM Director Kiran Ahuja. “Relying on a candidate’s previous salary history can exacerbate preexisting inequality and disproportionally impact women and workers of color. With these proposed regulations, the Biden-Harris Administration is setting the standard and demonstrating to the nation that we mean business when it comes to equality, fairness, and attracting the best talent.”