Midweek Update

David Ermer–Congress, COVID-19, Federal employment benefits, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC,

  • Govexec informs us
    • “So, 2023 is just about history. And Congress, having spent most of our last trip around the sun in political paralysis not surprisingly ran out the year’s clock in the same hardly decorous manner. 
    • “And, frankly, for feds that’s the good news. How so? Each year federal retirees and Social Security recipients get a cost-of-living adjustment that is carefully—if imperfectly—tabulated using a formula that crunches hard inflation data from the wider economy. Current federal employees, on the other hand, get their pay boost—if any—only by way of a political process. This process is governed under the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, or FEPCA. And when Congress does not act on this matter in a given year, then the federal pay adjustment comes from a stroke of the president’s pen. 
    • “This year, since Congress took its final recess without passing the customary appropriations bill, the White House almost certainly will issue an alternative pay plan along the lines President Biden proposed months ago: 4.7% base increase and, taking into account locality pay, an average pay boost of 5.2%.” 
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “The number of people signing up for coverage on Healthcare.gov has crossed 15 million, according to new data from the Biden administration.
    • “The Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that as of Dec. 15, 15.3 million people have chosen plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, surpassing previous records. On that day alone, 745,000 secured marketplace plans, the highest single day ever.
    • “Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a release that sign-ups are currently up 33% year-over-year.
    • “Dec. 15 was the deadline to secure a plan that kicks in on Jan. 1.”
  • The National Academies of Science posted August 2023 workshop proceedings about “Dietary Patterns to Prevent and Manage Diet-Related Disease Across the Lifespan.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • CBS News reports
    • “The World Health Organization announced Tuesday it would step up its classification of the new COVID-19 variant JN.1 to a standalone “variant of interest” after tracking the strain’s rapid ascent around the world. Health officials have been careful to say that JN.1 has so far not been found to lead to different or more severe symptoms compared to previous variants.
    • “However, the WHO said JN.1’s “rapidly increasing spread” in multiple parts of the world was enough to warrant ungrouping the strain from its slower-moving ancestor BA.2.86.
    • “JN.1 continues to be reported in multiple countries, and its prevalence has been rapidly increasing globally and now represents the vast majority of BA.2.86 descendent lineages reported,” the WHO wrote.”
    • The article adds that the variant will receive a Greek letter if it is promoted to a variant of concern.
  • The Wall Street Journal adds,
    • “Vaccine makers Pfizer,  Moderna and Novavax have said their updated Covid-19 shots generate immune responses against JN.1’s close parent, BA.2.86. 
    • “Data shows that all of the antibodies are a really good fit, luckily, for JN.1,” said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport. “That’s really good news.”
    • “Kamil pointed out that Covid-19 vaccine uptake has been low this season, some 18% of adults having gotten a shot, according to the CDC.”
  • Health Day informs us,
    • “Standard artificial intelligence (AI) models improve diagnostic accuracy, but systematically biased AI models reduce this accuracy, according to a study published in the Dec. 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review notes,
    • “Amid the rise of the Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjarno, older weight loss drugs are making a comeback in 2023, just like ripped jeans.
    • “The popular new weight loss drugs gaining attention still remain inaccessible for many due to pricing, insurance coverage or lack thereof, and shortages, which is why some adults are now turning to older weight loss drugs instead, CNN reported Dec. 20.
    • “As a result, there have been increasing prescriptions for drugs that are more within grasp. According to CNN, prescriptions for bupropion — an antidepressant medication used also to aid patients in quitting smoking with a side effect of weight loss — went up 29% between 2017 and 2023. Additionally, prescriptions for another drug, phentermine — a weight loss drug approved by the FDA in 1959 — rose 34% during the same time frame, according to the outlet.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans has named this year’s top six benefit trends.
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health and Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Lehigh Valley Health Network announced on Monday they signed a non-binding letter of intent to combine.
    • “If approved, the merger would join Jefferson’s hospital system with Lehigh’s 13 facilities to form a 30-hospital system with more than 62,000 employees. 
    • “Jefferson Health’s chief executive, Joseph Cacchione,will remain at the helm of the new enterprise, according to the release.”
  • and
    • “Froedtert Health and ThedaCare have finalized their merger, the systems announced Tuesday. The combined Wisconsin health system will launch on Jan. 1, 2024. * * *
    • “ThedaCare’s medical network includes eight hospitals and a medical network that serve residents in 17 counties in northeast and central Wisconsin. Froedtert provides healthcare services in southeast Wisconsin through ten hospitals and 45 health centers and clinics.”
  • and
    • “UnitedHealth and its pharmacy benefit manager OptumRx are being sued by an independent pharmacy for allegedly strong-arming pharmacies into agreeing to “unconscionable” performance-based fees, threatening their financial health.
    • “Those fees, called DIR or direct remuneration fees, allow PBMs to retroactively adjust how much pharmacies are reimbursed based on their quality performance. Osterhaus Pharmacy in Iowa is suing OptumRx for allegedly coercing the pharmacies to accept one-sided contracts including the fees — which at times force pharmacies to dispense prescriptions at a loss — or lose access to the millions of beneficiaries with pharmacy benefits through the PBM.
    • “The suit seeks class action status to include thousands of independent pharmacies with similar contracts with OptumRx. Osterhaus brought a similar suit against CVS in September.”