Congress

Liberal Democrats are trying to get the president to include major drug-pricing reforms in his upcoming American Families Plan by unveiling bicameral drug pricing legislation Thursday (April 22), while House Republicans Wednesday (April 21) reintroduced their own version that includes dozens of bipartisan measures that are minor compared to what Democrats are expected to attempt.

HHS last year allocated about $145 billion of the provider relief fund that now totals $178 billion, but the department told the Government Accountability Office that roughly $35 billion of those allocations hadn’t actually made it to providers as of Dec. 31.

Lawmakers from both parties are interested in reducing barriers to medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders, though some Republican lawmakers said at a House Energy & Commerce health subcommittee hearing last week that expanding access to treatment without comprehensive care plans would not be productive.

CMS on Friday (April 16) approved Georgia’s Medicaid waiver to extend its postpartum coverage from 60 days to six months and granted Missouri’s request to extend postpartum coverage to one year after beneficiaries diagnosed with a substance use disorder give birth.

Health policy experts say that with holdout states still unlikely to budge on Medicaid expansion, the Biden administration could create a targeted federal program similar to a public option or give access to a free plan on the marketplace to the millions of Americans in the so-called “Medicaid gap,” but the policy must be carefully crafted to not incentivize expansion states to drop coverage.

Some lawmakers on the House Appropriations HHS subcommittee praised funding for maternal health in HHS’s skinny discretionary budget during a hearing Thursday (April 15), but Republicans and Democrats were divided on whether HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra should keep the Hyde Amendment in his final budget request.

Several House Republicans said at a hearing Wednesday (April 14) that Congress should pass legislation to either extend or make permanent the Schedule 1 classification for fentanyl-related substances, while some Democrats touted an opposing bill that would use harm-reduction strategies to tackle the fentanyl crisis.

Group health plans and individual insurers would be required to cover without cost-sharing diagnostic breast cancer tests that may be needed following an initial screening under a bipartisan bill reintroduced this week by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Roy Blunt (R-MO).

The House on Wednesday (April 14) passed a bipartisan bill that will require food makers declare sesame as an allergen on their food labels. The bill, which cleared the Senate in March, now heads to the president’s desk.