Congress

Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said FTC faces many challenges in antitrust enforcement– including falling resources, the inability to study the insurance industry without explicit congressional authorization, lack of authority to review non-profit hospitals’ activities, a reliance on insurers’ data and the large amount of evidence courts require to show a merger could be harmful.

House Democrats have delayed a floor vote on the Energy & Commerce-passed reinsurance bill because they hope to package it with legislation to lower Affordable Care Act premiums, a senior House Democratic aide told Inside Health Policy.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee released a draft bipartisan proposal to tackle surprise medical billing that ties a benchmark payment rate for out-of-network services to the average in-network rate for that geographic area -- a move opposed by hospitals and providers, who don’t like rate setting.

The majority of the House – about 300 lawmakers – is asking House leadership to move legislation delaying by an additional two years the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital Payment cuts set to kick in Oct.1 – though, on the other side of Capitol Hill, Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has said Congress should revamp the payment system instead of simply delaying the cuts again.

CMS would be prevented from moving forward with a planned rule cutting back on non-emergency transportation benefits in Medicaid if a spending restriction pushed by the Congressional Black Caucus and supported by the House Appropriations Committee becomes law.

Senate health committee ranking Democrat Patty Murray (WA) sent letters to three duodenoscope makers -- Olympus, Pentax and Fujifilm -- asking about their plans to respond to FDA’s findings that the number of high-concern organisms found on reprocessed duodenoscopes is nearly 2.5% more than what the agency originally reported back in 2018.

The White House pressured Congress to act to curb surprise medical bills and said it would support a solution protects the patient in both emergency situations and when a facing a surprise bill after scheduling an in-network procedure.

The American Hospital Association is praising legislation it says would undo cuts to Medicare pay for clinic visits at certain facilities exempted from site-neutral policy in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 -- cuts that AHA is separately seeking to overturn through the federal courts.

The House will vote next week on legislation that combines key drug-pricing and Affordable Care Act bills, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said Wednesday (May 8).