| Hello, good morning. I'm back! A big thanks and shout out to all the health reporters who kept this newsletter chugging along. Not a subscriber? Sign up here. Before we begin, a note from one of our health team colleagues: Now that the federal government is no longer mailing free rapid coronavirus tests and health insurers aren't required to pay for them, The Post wants to hear how Americans are navigating testing this summer. Have you found free tests elsewhere or have you changed your testing habits? Send an email to Fenit Nirappil, the reporter working on the story, to share your experiences: fenit.nirappil@washpost.com. Today's edition: Caroline Kitchener details the lives of teen parents nearly two years after Texas's abortion ban was enacted. The National Institutes of Health launches clinical trials into potential long covid treatments. But first … | Congress faces major deadlines to reauthorize key health programs and fund the government |  It's going to be a busy September on Capitol Hill. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) | | | Congress left town last week with a lot of unfinished business. That means a busy September is in store after the month-long August recess. It's not unusual for Congress to wait until the last minute to secure major deals. But lawmakers have racked up a slew of impending deadlines, like reauthorizing critical health-care programs and funding the government by Sept. 30, and some major battle lines have already been drawn. Here's where the big-ticket items stand — and what lawmakers (and their staff) need to contend with over the summer congressional respite and into the fall. | | A large pot of money for community health centers, which provide care to some of the nation's most vulnerable, is set to expire at the end of next month. | | The status: A bill is moving through the House, while there's no agreement in the Senate. The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously advanced a wide-ranging bipartisan bill in late May that included a 5 percent bump in funding for health centers for the next two years. That amounts to $4.2 billion per year. But the Senate HELP Committee's leaders haven't agreed on an approach forward. Last month, Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.), the panel's ranking Republican, introduced legislation mirroring the House's funding plan. Days later, Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced a plan of his own: Invest $20 billion per year over a five-year period to expand health center funding as well as the health workforce. Cassidy slammed that proposal as "partisan legislation that cannot pass the Senate." 👀 What we're watching: Sanders wound up canceling a planned markup of his bill. Instead, he pledged to work with lawmakers on the committee — such as Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) — to have legislation ready by the first week of September. | | Congress is on tap to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, a sweeping bill with broad implications for the federal health department's emergency preparedness and response activities. The status: A key House panel advanced a partisan bill, while the Senate has a bipartisan plan. Last month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced two GOP-drafted bills aimed at continuing the expiring programs. Democrats largely opposed the measures, frustrated that Republicans refused to add in several provisions aimed at addressing the country's drug shortages. On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate's version of the bill sailed through the health committee in a 17-3 vote. | | 👀 What we're watching: The two chambers will need to reconcile their different versions of the bill at some point, which often leads to its own minefields. | | Lawmakers are grappling with reauthorizing an array of addiction treatment and recovery services first enacted as part of the 2018 Support Act. The status: A bipartisan bill is chugging along in the House, but the Senate is a question mark. The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously advanced bipartisan legislation as the nation faces a staggering rate of overdose deaths. Meanwhile Cassidy unveiled a proposal to extend the expiring programs, which amounts to the only plan in the Senate to do so. 👀 What we're watching: The key question is whether Sanders is on board with the plan from his committee's ranking Republican. His office didn't respond to a request for comment. | | The two chambers are staring down a high-stakes clash over the annual appropriations process. House Republicans have loaded their spending bills with antiabortion measures and other policies Democrats fiercely oppose. And such measures won't fly in the Democratic-controlled Senate. As is often the case in Washington, Congress could pass a stopgap spending bill to keep the government's lights on past Sept. 30 if lawmakers don't clinch a longer-term agreement when they're back from August recess. Such a bill could also potentially include a temporary extension of funding for critical health-care programs. 👀 What we're watching: "The Senate remains far apart from their counterparts in the GOP-led House in terms of spending levels and policy riders, increasing the likelihood of a government shutdown on Oct. 1, though a stopgap spending bill remains possible," analysts at TD Cowen write. | | |  | Reproductive wars | | An abortion ban made them teen parents. This is life two years later. |  Brooke High and Billy High play in the pool with their twins, Kendall and Olivia, in Tampa, Fla. (Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post) | | | Brooke and Billy High — and their twin daughters — appeared in a story in The Post just days before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer. That thrust them into a polarized national debate and turned them into symbols they hadn't imagined they'd become. Caroline Kitchener, with photos by Carolyn Van Houten, has a new story out this morning detailing Brooke and Billy's lives nearly two years after Texas's roughly six-week abortion ban went into effect in September 2021, circumventing Roe before it was overturned. "Brooke is proud of the decisions she and Billy have made for their family. Billy is now a mechanic for the Air Force, where he enlisted so he could secure a steady income for his family, while Brooke cares for the girls full time," Caroline writes. "The twins are healthy and happy, absorbed by weekly swim lessons and the bedtime stories Brooke and Billy read aloud every night. At their one-year checkup, Brooke swelled with pride when the doctor called her daughters 'really smart.'" "But standing in her kitchen one morning in late May, listening to Billy run the bath for the twins, Brooke also recognized how quickly it could all fall apart. She and Billy fought often — about the messes he left her to clean, the hours he spent playing video games — and she knew they couldn't manage without his $60,000-a-year military salary. She'd dropped out of real estate school without another career plan in mind." She doesn't get why some antiabortion advocates see them as the ultimate success story. "It doesn't make sense to me that we would be that shining example." Their lives, she told Caroline, were "so imperfect." | DeSantis catches heat from leading antiabortion group | | SBA Pro-Life America slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) yesterday for sidestepping whether he would support a federal abortion ban, calling the Republican presidential candidate's comments "unacceptable to pro-life voters." Key context: DeSantis, who signed a six-week abortion ban in April, told Megyn Kelly in an interview last week that he would be a "pro-life president," but he said he isn't confident Congress will do "anything meaningful" on the issue. | - "I really believe, right now in our society, it's really a bottom-up movement and that's where we've had most success," DeSantis said, pointing to states that this year passed new abortion restrictions.
| | SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser hit back. "There are many pressing legislative issues for which Congress does not have the votes at the moment, but that is not a reason for a strong leader to back away from the fight," she said in a statement yesterday. The other side: DeSantis's campaign rejected the criticism and nodded to his history in Florida as evidence of his record opposing abortion. "Governor DeSantis delivers results and acts, especially when it comes to protecting life," press secretary Bryan Griffin said in a statement to The Health 202. | | |  | Agency alert | | NIH announces long-covid treatment clinical trials |  The first clinical trial will test an extended regimen of Pfizer's Paxlovid. (Stephanie Nano/AP) | | | The National Institutes of Health is launching four clinical trials testing the safety and effectiveness of potential treatments for long-covid, with seven more to begin in the coming months, our colleagues Mark Johnson and Amy Goldstein report. The details: The first of the trials, which will test a longer regimen of Pfizer's antiviral medication Paxlovid on patients with viral persistence, is already underway. Other upcoming trials will test possible remedies for brain fog and memory loss; excessive sleepiness and sleep disturbances; and problems involving the autonomic nervous system, which includes heart rate, breathing and the digestive system. A fifth treatment area focusing on exercise intolerance and fatigue is under development. The bigger picture: These are the first clinical trials sponsored by the agency's RECOVER Initiative, which Congress granted nearly $1.2 billion in December 2020 to study long covid. They come after more than two years of criticism by patient activists and some researchers, who say the efforts are overdue. | | Lawrence Tabak, acting director of the NIH: |  | | | | | Medicare's innovation center will launch a new pilot program next summer aimed at better coordinating care for patients with dementia and supporting their unpaid caregivers. The effort will create a standard approach to delivering care, such as staffing considerations and quality standards; provide training to unpaid caregivers; and help pay for short breaks for caregivers. The new Medicare payment test will last eight years, and participation for providers is voluntary. | | Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra: |  | | | | | |  | In other health news | | - Indiana's near-total ban on abortions will take effect today. The state was the first in the nation after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to pass new legislation restricting abortion access, Ashlyn Wright reports for WRTV Indianapolis.
- Skilled nursing facilities will get an additional $1.4 billion in Medicare reimbursements in fiscal 2024 under a plan finalized yesterday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
- Abortion providers and others in Alabama filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) yesterday seeking to prevent charges against those helping pregnant patients receive abortions outside the state, Kim Chandler reports for the Associated Press.
- Average monthly Medicare premiums for Part D prescription drug coverage are expected to fall by 1.8 percent next year, from $56.49 in 2023 to $55.50 in 2024, according to projections released yesterday by CMS.
| | |  | Health reads | | | By David Ovalle and Fenit Nirappil | The Washington Post ● Read more » | | | | | |  | Sugar rush | | | Thanks for reading! See y'all tomorrow. | |
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