Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
First Edition: February 15, 2017
The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Rule Aims To Calm Insurers During Health-Law Limbo
While it addressed a number of insurers’ requests, industry executives said it didn’t resolve all their concerns and stopped short of answering some of the most important questions surrounding the future of the health law’s exchanges. Most of those major issues will likely involve action by Congress—including the fate of ACA subsidies that help low-income consumers pay for premiums and reduce their out-of-pocket costs for care. (Armour and Wilde Mathews, 2/15)
Los Angeles Times: While Congress Struggles To Replace Obamacare, The Trump Administration Is Moving To Reshape Health Insurance On Its Own
The proposed regulations also set the stage for potential reductions in government aid to low- and moderate-income consumers, another policy favored by GOP leaders, including Trump’s new Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, a fierce advocate for reduced federal healthcare spending. (Levey, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: What Will Change Under The Proposed Health Rule
A proposed rule released Wednesday aims to give health insurers greater certainty and financial benefits, making it more appealing for them to stay in Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges. Some health-care advocates, however, say the changes would hurt consumers. (Armour, 2/15)
The Washington Post: House GOP Leaders Will Elaborate On Their Obamacare Plans
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday that committee leaders will brief GOP lawmakers on some specific proposals at a closed-door meeting scheduled for Thursday morning. The meeting comes as leaders are working to rally sharply divided GOP members around a single plan to remake the health-care law. Asked whether leaders planned to announce specific elements of the repeal-and-replace plan that will be included in upcoming legislation McCarthy said, “Yes.” McCarthy did not say which elements of the plan would be detailed at the meeting. (Snell, Weigel and DeBonis, 2/15)
Politico: A Bleak Week For Obamacare
Obamacare’s health insurance markets are flirting with financial disaster — and that’s before Republicans have had a chance to lay their hands on the law they’ve vowed for seven years to repeal. (Demko, 2/15)
The Washington Post: Freedom Caucus Backs ACA ‘Repeal And Replace’ That Counts On Private Health Care
House conservatives, frustrated by GOP leadership’s slow and tentative approach to replacing the Affordable Care Act, have gotten behind legislation by Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would repeal most of the law and move millions of Americans Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). “We were tired of waiting,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) at a Wednesday press conference on the legislation, “and that’s why we said: Let’s go. Let’s go now.” (Weigel, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: Small Businesses Change Tune On Health-Insurance Coverage
When Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010, some small firms worried that the cost of covering their workers would drive them out of business. But many of them now say they plan to keep offering health-insurance coverage, even if the requirement that they do so is eliminated. Some entrepreneurs have changed their tune after realizing that the benefit helps them attract and retain workers in a tight labor market, while others say that complying with the requirement to offer health insurance coverage to certain employees hasn’t been the financial strain they feared—in part because fewer workers than expected signed up. (Simon, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: Humana’s Decision To Pull Out Of Health Exchanges Pressures Republicans
Humana Inc.’s decision to withdraw from the Affordable Care Act exchanges next year adds to the pressure on Republicans to bolster the marketplaces even as they promise to unwind the health law. ... Republicans may find themselves in a tough position politically if insurer withdrawals or sharp rate markups affect marketplace consumers in 2018, when federal health policy will have been under their control for about a year. ... Insurers have been ratcheting up the pressure on Republicans to prop up the marketplaces, with increasingly public threats about the consequences if they don’t see such efforts. Insurers must begin filing rates for their 2018 exchange plans with state regulators this spring. (Wilde Mathews and Armour, 2/15)
The Washington Post: Why America’s Health-Care Spending Is Projected To Soar Over The Next Decade
The projections are based on an assumption that the legislative status quo will prevail — an unlikely scenario given President Trump and Republicans' plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The spending projections are similar to previous estimates, putting health care on track to make up about a fifth of the economy by 2025. (Johnson, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: Anthem Counters Cigna’s Lawsuit By Filing Its Own Suit
In its suit, filed like Cigna’s in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Anthem said it sought a temporary restraining order to block Cigna from ending their pact. It also sought to force Cigna to adhere to the terms of their deal and requested damages. Anthem said it was reacting to “Cigna’s campaign to sabotage the merger and to try to deflect attention from its repeated willful breaches of the merger agreement.” (Wilde Mathews, 2/15)
The Washington Post: Aetna Chief Executive Says Obamacare Is In A ‘Death Spiral’
Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act's exchanges — the marketplaces where consumers can buy individual health coverage under President Barack Obama's signature health-care law — are in a “death spiral.” Bertolini's remarks at the Wall Street Journal's the Future of Healthcare event came a day after the official end of his company's proposed merger with the health insurer Humana — a divorce that will cost Aetna a $1 billion breakup fee. (Johnson, 2/15)
Politico: Aetna CEO: Obamacare Markets Are In A 'Death Spiral'
Bertolini’s doomsday prophesy: More insurers will pull out of the government-run marketplaces in the coming weeks and many areas will have no insurers to provide Affordable Care Act coverage in 2018. “It’s not going to get any better; it’s getting worse,” Bertolini said in an interview at a Wall Street Journal event. But he declined to say whether Aetna would completely pull out of Obamacare markets next year, though he said the population of covered people in the marketplaces has skewed older and sicker than expected. (Demko, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: Growth In U.S. Health Spending Slowed Slightly In 2016
Last year saw slower growth in Medicaid, a federal-state program for low-income individuals, as well as in prescription drug spending. Both factors likely contributed to the reduced growth in overall health spending. Prescription drug spending grew 5% in 2016, compared with 9% in 2015, a shift largely be attributed to a decrease in the use of specialty drugs to treat hepatitis C. At the same time, the growth of Medicaid slowed last year as the impact of an expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act began to wane. (Hackman, 2/15)
The Associated Press: Gene Editing Patent Ruling Sways Fortune Of Biotech Hopefuls
The financial implications are huge, since CRISPR may lead to many lucrative products in medicine, agriculture and elsewhere. One company that has licensed Broad’s technology, Editas Medicine Inc., saw its shares jump by 29 percent Wednesday. (Ritter, 2/15)
Los Angeles Times: UC Berkeley Suffers Big Loss In CRISPR Patent Fight: What's Next?
UC Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her European collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier, have racked up a slew of awards for their work, which makes it very easy to alter the DNA of living things. But their efforts to patent their discovery have been hung up by a competing claim from Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. (Netburn, 2/15)
The Washington Post: Broad Institute Scientist Prevails In Epic Patent Fight Over CRISPR
The CRISPR patent fight appears to be over, at least for the moment. A ruling by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board found no “interference” in patents awarded to Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The loser, pending appeals, is the University of California, and the much-heralded biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, in 2012 published a groundbreaking paper showing how to exploit a natural bacterial gene-editing system known as CRISPR. The patent office determined that Zhang's later innovations, which used CRISPR to edit mammalian cells, were not simply elaborations of what Doudna and Charpentier had already discovered. (Achenbach and Johnson, 2/15)
The Washington Post: ‘Urgent Care On Wheels’: Fire Departments Rescuing Patients From Costly ER Trips
In the 15 minutes after firefighters and a nurse knocked at Thelma Lee’s Maryland townhouse, they checked her blood pressure, told her what foods would keep her blood sugar from skyrocketing and set up an appointment — and a ride — to visit her primary-care physician. They also changed the battery in her chirping fire alarm and put a scale in her bathroom so she could monitor her weight. Then they rolled out in an SUV to their next house call. (Bui and Williams, 2/15)
The Associated Press: Md. Health Officials Call For Drug Affordability Legislation
When Bonnita Spikes, of Prince George’s County, learned her Alzheimer’s medication’s price had skyrocketed to $500, she was no longer able to afford the essential medicine. Diagnosed in 2013, Spikes quit her job after she determined her condition had progressed to the point where she was no longer able to fulfill her duties, leaving her without insurance or the ability to pay the soaring drugs’ costs. “I just can’t imagine needing something that important and not being able to get it,” Spikes said. (Schwartz, 2/15)
The Wall Street Journal: New Jersey To Limit Amount Of Opioid Pills In Prescriptions
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation Wednesday curtailing the quantity of opioid pills doctors can prescribe for acute pain, a restriction he said is necessary to curb the state’s addiction crisis. The new law lowers the limit on initial prescriptions for opioids to a maximum five-day supply from 30 days for acute pain and directs practitioners to prescribe the lowest effective dose of immediate-release opioid drugs. Mr. Christie, a Republican, has pledged to spend his final year as governor battling the state’s heroin and opioid epidemic. (King, 2/15)
Los Angeles Times: California State Senator Proposes Banning Prescriptions Of Powerful Painkiller Oxycodone For Those Under 21
Seeking to stem the growing opioid abuse crisis, a California state senator is proposing to prohibit prescriptions of the painkiller oxycodone for anyone under the age of 21. Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) said his measure, SB 419, would stop younger people from getting early exposure to the highly addictive pain drug, commonly known by its brand name, OxyContin. (Mason, 2/15)
