Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden Signs $1.2T Spending Bill That Includes $117B For HHS
Modern Healthcare: Congress Passes $1.2T Spending Bill That Includes HHS Funding
Congress passed the final measure early Saturday morning funding Health and Human Services Department operations, among other government programs, for the remainder of the fiscal year. Congress struggled for months to move the 12 annual appropriations bills it is supposed to pass by Sept. 30 every year. Having missed the regular deadline, it repeatedly passed stopgap funding bills to keep the government open. (McAuliff, 3/23)
Axios: Government Spending Deal Keeps Health Programs Near Status Quo
The latest government funding deal wasn't just stripped of big health policy changes — it also lacks significant raises for a host of federal health agencies. (Knight and Sullivan, 3/22)
The Hill: Biden Campaign Uses ObamaCare Anniversary To Hammer Trump On Health Care
President Biden is using the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) passage to hammer former President Trump’s record on health care and capitalize on his threats to repeal the law. In a new digital ad released Friday ahead of the 14th anniversary of the law, the Biden campaign sought to highlight Trump’s repeated repeal threats and underscore the consequences if he were to win a second term. (Weixel, 3/22)
Stat: Medicare Advantage Insurers Pressure Biden For Bigger Payments
The public will soon find out whether the federal government is willing to meet the health insurance industry’s demands and deposit more money into the bank accounts of next year’s Medicare Advantage plans. (Herman, 3/25)
Stat: Patient Advocates Debate FDA's Accelerated Approval Process
Over 30 years ago, Gregg Gonsalves and other AIDS activists persuaded Congress to create the accelerated approval pathway, allowing regulators to speed access to drugs for thousands of dying patients. These days, though, Gonsalves sounds uneasy — if not mournful — of the world he helped build. (Mast, 3/25)
Modern Healthcare: Change Update: Lax Cybersecurity Could Limit Aid Under New Bill
The first piece of legislation responding to the Change Healthcare outage debuted in Congress Friday, more than a month since a ransomware attack that has roiled the sector. The Health Care Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2024 would expand the Health and Human Services Department's authority to make advance and accelerated Medicare reimbursements during emergencies stemming from cyberattacks. But providers and their business partners would have to meet minimum cybersecurity standards to qualify. (McAuliff, 3/22)
The New York Times: Kamala Harris Visits Parkland And Urges States To Adopt Red-Flag Gun Laws
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday toured the still-bloody and bullet-pocked classroom building in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members in 2018, using the grim backdrop to announce a new federal resource center and to call for stricter enforcement of gun laws. The freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had been preserved as evidence for criminal trials and is set to be demolished this summer. (Shear, 3/23)
Stat: FDA Authorizes New Drug To Protect Vulnerable From Covid-19
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized a new antibody to protect immunocompromised individuals against Covid-19. The drug, known as Pemgarda and marketed by the biotech Invivyd, is the first such drug to become available since the agency pulled AstraZeneca’s Evusheld off the market in January 2023. New Omicron variants had rendered Evusheld ineffective. (Mast, 3/22)
Reuters: US Appeals Court Curtails EPA's Ability To Regulate PFAS Under Toxic Substances Law
A federal appeals court has vacated two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency orders prohibiting a Texas plastics treatment company from manufacturing toxic “forever chemicals” while treating plastic containers used to hold things like pesticides and household cleaners. A unanimous three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday agreed with Inhance Technologies that the EPA overstepped its authority by issuing the orders, since they were rooted in a section of the federal toxic chemical law reserved for regulating "new" chemicals. (Mindock, 3/22)
Newsweek: FDA Settles Lawsuit Over Ivermectin Social Media Posts
The FDA has agreed to delete and never republish several social-media posts suggesting that ivermectin, a drug that some doctors used to treat COVID-19, is for animals and not humans. While the FDA still does not approve of using ivermectin to treat COVID, it settled Thursday a lawsuit brought by three doctors who sued it, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, and FDA secretary Robert Califf. All parties have settled. (Bond, 3/22)
Also —
The Hill: Global AIDS Program Survives, But Backers ‘Not Satisfied’
America’s global AIDS relief program has been authorized for another year in the bipartisan budget deal, but public health advocates say the single year sends a worrying signal about U.S. commitment on the issue moving forward. ... It’s the first time the program has not been given a five-year extension. (Choi, 3/23)
