Good morning, readers! It feels like old times as I bring you The Health 202 as its author instead of its editor. Rachel Roubein will be back with you tomorrow; in the meantime we've got you covered by the pool, in the shade and wherever else you like to consume your health policy news in the dog days of summer. Not a subscriber? Sign up here. Today's edition: Doctors accused of pushing medical misinformation during the pandemic rarely faced repercussions, and an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio constitution will appear on voters' ballots this fall. But first … | A House bill dropping today would expand price negotiation beyond Medicare and to more drugs | Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and two other leading House Democrats will introduce a drug price negotiation bill today. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) | | It's been nearly a year since Congress passed legislation allowing the federal government — for the first time — to force lower drug prices for a limited number of medications in Medicare. Now a trio of House Democrats are outlining how they'd like to expand the measure to Americans beyond just those in the Medicare program and to more than 20 drugs, in materials provided first to The Health 202. Their bill is only aspirational, considering Republicans control the House. But Democrats, who have long called in vain for drug price negotiation, were emboldened by the measure in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act which, while incremental, represented an unusual victory for them over the pharmaceutical industry. The bill being introduced today by the leaders of the three House committees dealing with health-care issues would extend the lower drug prices that will soon be negotiated in Medicare to employer-sponsored health plans and plans offered on the state insurance marketplaces. And it would do two additional things: | - The government could negotiate lower prices for up to 50 drugs. As laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act, eligible drugs would generally need to be the highest-cost drugs and would need to meet a number of other qualifications, such as having a minimum length of time elapsed since their FDA approval and not having an "orphan drug" designation.
- Medicare drug rebates required under the IRA would also apply to private plans. Drugmakers that hiked the prices of single-source drugs and biologicals in commercial plans faster than the rate of inflation would have to pay a rebate to the U.S. Treasury.
| "The Inflation Reduction Act finally granted Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors, however, the fight is not over," Energy and Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.) said in a statement. | | | | Prescriptions are too expensive and managing your care can be complicated. We're finding ways to make it better ever step along the way. Learn how we're working to "Optumize" pharmacy care. | | | | | | Pallone, along with Ways and Means ranking Democrat Richard Neal (Mass.) and Education and the Workforce ranking Democrat Bobby Scott (Va.), will announce the measure today. "This bill delivers on our promise to build upon the historic progress made by the Inflation Reduction Act and will allow us to further lower drug prices," Scott said in a statement. | With battles over the 2010 health-care law largely in the rearview mirror, Democrats have spent the last few years focusing on the high cost of drugs. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi invested considerable energy in trying to get her drug price negotiation bill, H.R. 3, passed and was instrumental in getting a pared-back version included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans have overwhelmingly opposed the measure, calling it a "government price control" and introducing legislation in the Senate to repeal it. Since then, the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying group and several drug companies have filed suit over the negotiation measure, saying it stymied research and development. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the negotiations could lead to a very modest reduction in the number of new drugs coming to market in the next 30 years, saying there would be 13 fewer new drugs out of an estimated 1,300 new drugs approved during that time period. The next major deadline for implementing that legislation is Sept. 1, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services must announce the first 10 drugs it will negotiate over. | | | Coronavirus | | New this a.m.: Doctors who put lives at risk with covid misinformation were rarely punished | Many of the misinformation complaints involved ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, neither of which are effective treatments for covid-19. (Ted S. Warren/AP) | | Across the country, state medical boards charged with protecting the American public have often failed to discipline doctors who went against medical consensus and prescribed unapproved covid treatments or misled patients about vaccines and masks during the pandemic, The Post's Lena H. Sun, Lauren Weber, Hayden Godfrey report. | By the numbers: Just 20 doctors nationally were penalized for complaints related to covid misinformation between January 2020 and June 2023, according to a Washington Post analysis of disciplinary records from medical boards in all 50 states. Five of those doctors lost their medical license, one had his revoked and four surrendered theirs. | - It is impossible to know how many doctors were spreading misinformation because most states do not monitor or divulge those complaints. But The Post's requests to the boards yielded at least 480 covid-misinformation-related complaints in the last three years — meaning only a small fraction of those led to disciplinary action.
- Many of the complaints relate to doctors promoting ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, which have been disproven as effective covid treatments and could come with dangerous side effects. Discipline is typically connected to patient care, not just what doctors say.
| The bigger picture: The political polarization fueled by the pandemic spawned a wave of medical misinformation, but state medical boards face growing barriers to holding doctors accountable for spreading it. In the last two years, GOP-controlled state legislatures in Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee have passed laws to protect doctors from disciplinary action for prescribing ivermectin. While Republican attorneys general in six states, including Kansas and Oklahoma, have issued opinions saying doctors can prescribe ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, with four of them determining doctors cannot be disciplined for off-label prescription to treat covid, our colleagues write. You can read Lena, Lauren and Hayden's full story here. | | | State scan | | Ohio abortion rights measure meets signature requirement for November ballot | Boxes of signatures are delivered to the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) in downtown Columbus earlier this month. (Patrick Orsagos/AP). | | It's official: Ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution in November. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) certified yesterday that backers of the proposed constitutional amendment had submitted 495,938 valid signatures from voters, clearing the minimum threshold required to put the question on the ballot this fall. | A key hurdle remains: Ohioans will head to the polls on Aug. 8 for a special election called by Statehouse Republicans, where they will weigh in on a ballot initiative that would raise the threshold needed to change the state constitution from a simple majority to 60 percent. The results of that election could signal whether the abortion rights measure has a shot at passing later this year, Jessie Balmert reports for the Cincinnati Enquirer. | - Ohio Right to Life CEO Peter Range emphasized the importance of the special election shortly after LaRose announced that the abortion rights measure made the ballot. "It is even more imperative that every pro-life Ohioan votes yes on Issue 1 this August to ensure that our Constitution, our preborn and our families are protected," he said in a statement.
| Also on our radar: A proposal to legalize adult use of marijuana in Ohio narrowly fell short of the valid signatures it needed to make the fall statewide ballot. Backers will have 10 additional days to gather nearly 700 more, LaRose said in a letter to the petitioners yesterday. | Cleveland Mayor Justin M. Bibb (D): | | | | Mark Harrington, founder and president of Created Equal, an antiabortion group: | | | | Meanwhile, across the country … | - In Iowa: The state Supreme Court gave Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) the greenlight yesterday to proceed with an appeal of a temporary block halting enforcement of the state's new abortion law, Hannah Fingerhut reports for the Associated Press.
- In North Dakota: A pharmacy's fight against an executive order from the Biden administration that allegedly requires it to stock and dispense abortion-inducing drugs won't be resolved until a sister court in Texas decides that state's challenge to the same rule, Bloomberg Law's Mary Anne Pazanowski reports.
| | | Daybook | | Just announced: Vice President Harris will travel to Des Moines on Friday for a moderated conversation on reproductive rights with local activists and providers. The conversion is expected to center on the effects of the state's new abortion ban and will highlight the administration's ongoing work to expand access to reproductive care across the country, the White House said yesterday. Split screen: Harris's visit will coincide with the Republican Party of Iowa's annual Lincoln Dinner, when more than a dozen GOP presidential candidates are set to descend on the city, Brianne Pfannenstiel reports for the Des Moines Register. | | | In other health news | | - The House passed a bill by voice vote yesterday that would empower federal officials to overhaul the nation's Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network — an effort that has recently garnered bipartisan support in the Senate as well.
- A court ruled yesterday that OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma can proceed with a bankruptcy settlement that shields its Sackler family owners from future opioid lawsuits, despite a likely appeal to the Supreme Court in the case, Dietrich Knauth reports for Reuters.
- Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk is facing heat after tweeting about a possible connection between coronavirus vaccines and the cardiac arrest suffered yesterday by Bronny James, the son of NBA star LeBron James, the Hill's Olafimihan Oshin reports.
| | | Health reads | | By Jonathan Mattise | The Associated Press ● Read more » | | | | | Sugar rush | | Thanks for reading! See y'all tomorrow. | |
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