The Hill reports that “[House of Representatives] Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House will move quickly on Friday to approve the Senate’s massive, $2 trillion coronavirus relief package [the CARES Act, H.R. 748] through the lower chamber and on to President Trump, who has vowed to sign it immediately.” NPR has provided a link to the text of the bill that the Senate passed unanimously at 11:17 pm last night.
The President and the entire Senate leadership have agreed on a third COVID-19 relief bill known as the CARES Act (H.R. 748). Senator Charles Grassley, the Senate Finance Committee Chair, has released a summary of the bill’s taxation and unemployment insurance provisions and summary of its health provisions. The key health provisions affecting federal employees benefits are the following:
Sec. 3701. Health Savings Accounts for Telehealth Services
This section would allow a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) with a health savings account (HSA) to cover telehealth services prior to a patient reaching the deductible, increasing access for patients who may have the COVID-19 virus and protecting other patients from potential exposure.
Sec. 3702. Over-the-Counter Medical Products without Prescription
This section would allow patients to use funds in HSAs and Flexible Spending Accounts for the purchase of over-the-counter medical products, including those needed in quarantine and social distancing, without a prescription from a physician.
The FEHBlog mistakenly stated on Sunday that that the House of Representatives would be back on Capitol Hill yesterday. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal explains, House members remain on recess this week. Should the Senate as anticipated pass the CARES Act today, the House leadership is expected to seek approval by a unanimous consent motion. A single member of Congress can block such a motion so a lot rides on entire House leadership support for the bill. According to the Wall Street Journal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the unanimous consent to clear the House. This motion could be brought to the House floor on tomorrow or Friday. The Journal further reports that the President is ready to sign the bill into law.
The FEHBlog has found a link to a COVID-19 statistics site, The COVID-19 Tracking Project, that displays aggregated lab results from COVID-19 testing, U.S. state by state, where available.
The House and the Senate will be in session this coming week working on a third COVID-19 relief bill. The House returns from a district work week on Tuesday while the Senate cancelled its state work week which had been scheduled for this week.
On the COVID-19 front —
Congress is back at work on Capitol Hill this week. The FEHBlog did find an easy to read list of upcoming Congressional hearings on Congress.gov. The FEHBlog did not find any hearing relevant to the FEHBP coming up.
The FEHBlog is following news about the COVID-19 epidemic. The Wall Street Journal reports that the number of cases outside China is growing particularly in South Korea (602 cases) and Italy (155 cases). There are 34 cases in the U.S. In a Centers for Disease Control conference with the press last Friday, Dr. Nancy Messonnier explained that
We are making our case counts in two tables. One only tracks people who were repatriated by the state department, and the second tracks all other cases picked up through U.S. public health network. CDC will continue to update these numbers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We are keeping track of cases resulting from repatriation efforts separately because we don’t believe those numbers accurately represent the picture of what is happening in the community in the united states at this time. As of this morning, when you break things up this way, we have 13 U.S. cases versus 21 cases among people who were repatriated [here]. The repatriated cases include 18 passengers from the “diamond princess” and three from the Wuhan [China] repatriation flights
The Wall Street Journal confirms the growing trend of large health insurers to offer their own primary care delivery services to their health plan members [previously documented by the FEHBlog].
“It’s very worrisome for hospitals,” said Chas Roades, a health-care consultant. “Suddenly, the plan you’re relying on for payment is also competing with you at the front end of the delivery system.”
Hospitals’ biggest concern may be the power that primary-care doctors have over where their patients go for care such as imaging scans and specialist procedures. Hospitals rely on doctors to direct patients to them for such services—one reason they have bought up physician practices. Insurer-owned clinics might refer patients away from certain hospital systems, cutting off important revenue.
The FEHBlog in contrast is delighted with this trend which will hold down costs while improving health care quality. Competition itself is healthy. “’Health care has got to be more seamless and more integrated,” said Rob Falkenberg, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare’s California operation.” Agreed.
Fierce Healthcare reports that Oscar Health has creating a $3 per prescription formulary of about 100 popular prescription drugs and insulin. The formulary went into effect on January 1, 2020 for about half of Oscar’s health plan members. The other half if covered by Medicare or live in certain states like New York which have not approved the formulary. The article explains that
Oscar was able to price the drugs so low through plan design.“The price we pay to acquire the drug for our members has not changed,” [Oscar spokesperson Jackie] Kahn said. “Instead, we chose to have our members pay $3 and we are covering the rest.”