Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Senate Finance Panel Grills Medicare Advantage Brokers Over Incentives
Stat: Senate Finance Targets Medicare Advantage Brokers
Senate Finance Committee members from both parties took aim Wednesday at insurance brokers that sell plans for large Medicare Advantage insurers. Older adults at times have more than 100 plan options, and brokers help them choose the right one. But brokers can be incentivized by large insurance companies to aggressively sell plans that are a poor fit for the Medicare beneficiaries they’re supposed to help. (Wilkerson, 10/18)
Modern Healthcare: Medicare Advantage Marketing Faces Scrutiny After Senate Hearing
Medicare Advantage brokers may face tougher restrictions from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid after a highly critical Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday. The hearing, the topic of which was "cracking down on deceptive practices," catalogued a litany of alleged abuses by brokers—from providing false information and harassment to switching people out of plans without consent, all in a bid to boost increasingly opaque compensation from insurers. That includes "add-on" fees for administration. (McAuliff, 10/18)
On drug-pricing negotiations and drug shortages —
Boston Globe: Biotech Investors Push To Delay Drug Pricing Negotiations For Pills
The fight over drug prices is far from over. Investors in biopharma companies, who lobbied vigorously — but unsuccessfully — against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, are trying a new tactic to preserve their profits. (Weisman, 10/18)
Axios: The Gaps In Medicare's Plan To Fix Drug Shortages
A Medicare proposal to help alleviate major shortages of cancer drugs and other essential medicines could disadvantage facilities serving vulnerable populations and instigate new supply issues, experts and hospital groups say. (Goldman, 10/19)
In other Medicare news —
CNBC: Medicare Open Enrollment May Help You Cut Health-Care Costs For 2024
Medicare beneficiaries have until Dec. 7 to change their Medicare health and prescription drug coverage for the coming year through annual open enrollment. This year, there’s even more reason to pay attention, as financial assistance for prescription drug coverage is set to expand starting Jan. 1, according to Meena Seshamani, director of the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Konish, 10/18)
KFF Health News: Health Care ‘Game-Changer’? Feds Boost Care For Homeless Americans
The Biden administration is making it easier for doctors and nurses to treat homeless people wherever they find them, from creekside encampments to freeway underpasses, marking a fundamental shift in how — and where — health care is delivered. As of Oct. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began allowing public and private insurers to pay “street medicine” providers for medical services they deliver anyplace homeless people might be staying. (Hart, 10/19)
Also —
KFF Health News and Cox Media Group: Under Fire, Social Security Chief Vows ‘Top-To-Bottom’ Review Of Payment Clawbacks
The head of the Social Security Administration said Wednesday the agency has been sending about 1 million people a year notices that they were paid benefits to which they were not entitled, and she said she has ordered a “top-to-bottom, comprehensive review” of how the agency deals with such overpayments. Kilolo Kijakazi, the acting commissioner, testified at a congressional hearing at which House members faulted the agency for issuing billions of dollars of payments in error and then, often much later, demanding that beneficiaries pay the money back. (Hilzenrath and Fleischer, 10/18)
