Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Biden Hasn't Taken Office Yet, But Some Of His Ideas Are Already In Trouble
MarketWatch: Biden’s Plan To Boost Social Security And Medicare Already Looks Wobbly
President-elect Joe Biden won’t take office for another 10 weeks, but it looks like one of his biggest ideas to help retirees is already in trouble. Biden and his fellow Democrats were sure that if he won the White House, that Democrats would also flip the Senate. They also assumed that the Democrats would gain seats in the House of Representatives, adding to the majority they’ve held since January 2019. (Paul Brandus, 11/10)
Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Legislation Faces Dim Chances With Divided Congress
Court challenges could keep the presidential race up in the air for weeks. But no matter who eventually occupies the White House, the next president will face a divided Congress, which makes passing major healthcare legislation an unlikely prospect over the next two years. Many reform advocates pinned their hopes on a simple fix for the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas, which will be heard by the Supreme Court on Nov. 10. A Democratic Congress under a Joe Biden presidency could render the case moot by passing a $1 tax for failing to buy health insurance. Or it could restore the original individual mandate. But the mixed election results eliminate those options. (Merrill Goozner, 11/7)
The Forward: 5 Progressive Trump Achievements For Biden To Build On
Another Trump achievement that Democrats should support was the administration’s aggressive push to get generic drugs to market, where they could compete with more expensive brand-name drugs and drive down prices. Since 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved more than 1,600 generic-drug applications – one third more than it did in the previous two years under President Obama (and Vice President Biden). (Batya Ungar-Sargon, 11/9)
