Health Exchange Alert Weekly Report - 06/21/2017

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) penned an op-ed Monday urging his fellow Republicans to slow down their push to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act because it is being branded as hurting elderly individuals and will hurt the party politically in the midterms. Gingrich, who informally advised Donald Trump during the presidential transition, said GOP lawmakers should stabilize the market and fund the ACA's cost-sharing reduction payments through 2018 before working on a long-term health care overhaul.

CMS is set to roll out its new pre-enrollment verification process for special enrollment periods in two phases, with the first slated to start June 23 for two categories -- a permanent move and loss of minimal essential coverage -- and the second phase starting in August for additional categories -- marriage, adoption, birth, and denial of Medicaid or CHIP. The agency has been holding webinars to introduce the process to insurance enrollment assisters, agents and brokers as well as consumers advocates, some of whom tell Inside Health Policy they worry the process will be too confusing for many people.

Seven Republican and Democratic governors are calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to work with them to help stabilize endangered state exchanges, and their priority is making plans affordable.

House Republicans postponed a floor vote on medical malpractice legislation because some conservatives are worried about imposing federal standards on states, according to Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC). Tort reform is one of many issues that House Republicans had wanted to address in the American Health Care Act but were forced to deal with separately because of budget rules. The president's 2018 budget request also calls for medical malpractice reform.

HHS Secretary Tom Price said he has instructed his agency to respond to requests for information from all members of Congress, despite what Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called a "disturbing" memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that says the executive branch should only consider requests from committee chairs or full committee requests as oversight.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on Thursday (June 15) became the second congressional GOP chair to recommended the administration fund cost-sharing reduction payments at least through 2018, and he said it would be preferable for the subsidies to run through 2019. Alexander told HHS Secretary Tom Price at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that the CSR payments would keep many people from having no options to buy insurance in 2018.

Mental health advocates are blasting a Senate Republican proposal to set up a separate funding pool for the care of opioid addicts currently covered through Medicaid expansion but who under the American Health Care Act would not be allowed to re-enroll in Medicaid once they cycle off.

President Donald Trump invited Republican senators to the White House last Tuesday (June 13) to deliver a message that the Senate needs to pass a health care bill because insurers are increasingly dropping out of the exchanges, and Vice President Mike Pence held up a new CMS county-by-county report to paint a picture of fewer consumers buying coverage. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who attended the meeting, said some lawmakers pitched a short-term stabilization plan that funds cost-sharing reduction payments.

President Donald Trump could use an executive order to direct the CMS innovation center to waive rules that would make it easier for drug companies and insurance companies to use value-based contracts, said Paul Howard, director and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Drug industry representatives met with administration officials Friday (June 16) to discuss policies aimed at curbing drug price increases, and drug industry lobbyists said news reports about a soon-to-be-released executive order aimed at encouraging value-based contracts are true.