From Washington, DC

• Congress is on the campaign trail until sometime after the national election on November 5.

• The Supreme Court will hold its opening conference of its October term 2024 tomorrow. Among the cert petitions to be considered is the State of Oklahoma’s challenge to a 10th Circuit opinion holding that ERISA preempts an Oklahoma PBM reform law (No. 23-1213). That opinion is helpful to FEHB carriers. A Supreme Court decision to grant Oklahoma’s petition would be posted on FriCBS day October 4. A Supreme Court decision to deny Oklahoma’s petition or ask the Solicitor General for her views would be posted on Monday October 7.

• MedCity News delves into the FTC’s recent administrative complaint against the big three PBMs’ handling of insulin pricing.

From the public health and medical research front,

• CBS News reports that “Free COVID tests [from the federal government] are back. But there are more accurate tests for sale.”

• Per NPR Shots,
  • “Three-dimensional imaging outperformed older digital mammography at reducing anxiety-producing callbacks for more breast cancer testing, a new study shows. The research, published this month in the journal Radiology also suggests the newer technology might find more worrisome cancers earlier during routine screenings.
  • “Lead author Dr. Liane Philpotts, a Yale School of Medicine radiology professor, hailed 3D mammography, also known as digital breast tomosynthesis or DBT, as “a win, win, win.”
  • “We have the benefit of a lower recall rate, or fewer false positives. We have increased cancer detection, and we have a lower rate of advanced cancers,” she said. “So it’s truly a game changer.” * * *
  • “Still, the new study, fails to definitively answer the question of whether newer, more expensive 3D mammography finds troublesome breast cancers earlier than 2D mammography, sparing women harsh treatment and saving lives, an accompanying editorial says.
  • “The verdict won’t come until 2030, at the conclusion of a large-scale randomized controlled trial comparing 3D to 2D mammography, according to the editorial written by two Korea University Guro Hospital radiology professors.
  • “Pending the 2030 trial results, the editorial concludes, the new study provides “indirect evidence suggesting the potential of DBT screening in improving survival outcomes.” 

• Fortune Well asks us “Getting enough sleep but still exhausted? These 7 types of rest can help.”

• The Washington Post lets us know,
  • “Suicide rates are lower in U.S. counties with more health insurance coverage and broadband internet access and higher income, a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis suggests.
  • “The report analyzed more than 49,000 suicide deaths in 2022 from the National Vital Statistics database. Researchers compared county suicide rates to the percent of residents with health insurance coverage, households with broadband access and households with income above the federal poverty level.
  • ‘The overall U.S. suicide rate in 2022 was 14.2 per 100,000 people, the CDC report said. Suicide rates were highest among non-Hispanic American Indians or Alaska Natives (27.1 per 100,000 population) and White people (17.6 per 100,000). The suicide rate for boys and men was nearly four times higher than for girls and women (23 per 100,000 for males vs. 5.9 per 100,000 for females). Rural residents and those ages 45 to 64 (19 per 100,000) and 24 to 44 (18.9 per 100,000) had the highest suicide rate, according to the CDC report.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• STAT News reports,
  • “Dr. Ralph de la Torre, a former heart surgeon who built and became the face of Steward Health Care and its network of neglected hospitals, is stepping down from the company Tuesday and will no longer serve as board chairman and chief executive, the company said in a statement to the Globe Saturday.
  • “With his affinity for luxury yachts and corporate jets, de la Torre became a symbol of greed in for-profit health care, amid mounting stories this year of patients harmed by shortages of staff and critical supplies at Steward hospitals. De la Torre is believed to hold a majority of shares in the private company, which was one of the nation’s largest for-profit, private health care systems, and is now being taken apart in bankruptcy proceedings.”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi’s inflammatory disease drug Dupixent for a common lung condition. The decision could significantly expand use of what is already one of the industry’s best-selling medicines.
  • “Dupixent is now cleared for use as an add-on maintenance treatment for adults with a certain kind of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, that can’t be controlled with other medications.
  • “The decision makes Dupixent the first biologic medicine approved in the U.S. for COPD, a lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe and is typically treated with inhaled medicines. Regeneron estimates about 300,000 people in the U.S. have the specific type of COPD that would make them eligible for treatment with Dupixent, which is administered via injection under the skin.”

• Per Healthcare Dive,
  • “When independent hospitals are acquired by multi-hospital health systems, they experience boosts to profitability and efficiency, according to a new study published in the Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics this week. 
  • “Acquired hospitals saw profitability increase by about $14 million per year, on increased consumer prices and cuts to nonclinical staff. 
  • “However, when corporate-owned hospitals are acquired by other health systems, they do not experience similar efficiency gains, the study found, suggesting there is likely a limit to how much consolidation can benefit hospital performance.”