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House Energy and Commerce lawmakers on Thursday (Feb. 26) grilled HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell on a number of ACA-related issues, and demanded that she submit an estimate of when back-end infrastructure work on Healthcare.gov will be completed.

The House Ways & Means Committee narrowed the scope of its earlier proposal to lock some beneficiaries into certain pharmacies and providers or “safe pharmacies networks” as the committee marked up the Protecting the Integrity of Medicare Act Thursday (Feb. 26), but otherwise made few changes to the broad anti-fraud bill before unanimously passing it out of committee.

The House Ways & Means Committee Thursday (Feb. 26) unanimously passed four bills on Medicare fraud, durable medical equipment competitive bidding, observation status notices and meaningful use exemptions.

Contrary to GOP plans, commissioners on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission on Thursday (Feb. 26) urged Congress to renew the Children's Health Insurance Program quickly and without fundamental changes to the program.

Public Citizen took a swipe at FDA Thursday (Feb. 26) for delaying its contentious generic drug labeling rule in order to give the brand and generic drug industry an opportunity to publicly pitch an alternative plan to get new safety information on drug labels.

FDA has postponed an advisory committee meeting that was slated for March 17 on a second biosimilar application -- Hospira and Celltrion's proposed biosimilar for Janssen Biotech Inc.'s Remicade -- citing pending requests for more information from the application's sponsor.

An advisory committee this week concurred with FDA's suggestion that 26 drugs be listed as unsafe or not effective for compounding, firming up a highly anticipated updated list that is key to the agency's implementation of the new compounding law.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell denied knowledge of an alleged document outlining post-King contingency plans, after a key GOP lawmaker told her Thursday morning that a department official informed him of a hundred-or-so page report circulating among top HHS officials that details actions the Obama administration could take if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against it in King v. Burwell.

The National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices is disbanding in large part because the organization achieved its goals, a release from the group states, but the break up happens as plans and providers fight against high prices of specialty drugs.