Congress

The American Hospital Association and a wide range of health care stakeholders urged congressional leaders to pass a key health security bill before the end of the lame-duck session, arguing that, without reauthorization from lawmakers, essential HHS emergency preparedness authorities will expire and gaps in federal response programs will remain unfilled.

The incoming Senate Finance Committee chair and ranking Democrat introduced Tuesday (Dec. 4) a bill to recoup Medicaid rebates from drug companies that misclassify drugs.

The Trump administration released a series of health policy recommendations Monday (Dec. 3) that officials say would reduce barriers to competition in the individual and other markets, including loosening network adequacy restrictions, expanding access to health savings accounts, eliminating the employer mandate and altering the Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination provisions.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told Inside Health Policy that he is in the early stages of developing a bill that would address payment models for high-cost prescription drugs such as gene therapies.

Although Capitol Hill leaders have expressed little interest in doing anything health care-related during the remaining two weeks of the lame-duck session, a bipartisan group of senators is calling for a Senate vote on legislation to delay the health insurance tax.

Incoming Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley outlined his agenda for lowering drug prices in a floor speech Thursday (Nov. 29) that included praise for actions taken by the Trump administration but made no mention of HHS’ controversial proposal to base Medicare Part B reimbursement on drug prices set by foreign governments.

Drug pricing is one of the only areas where the two parties and the president might find common ground to make laws, and President Donald Trump, Democrats and incoming Senate Finance chair have been harping on drug prices so long that it will be difficult for them to do nothing, according to two former White House health aides for Republican and Democratic administrations.

Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Tuesday (Nov. 20) unveiled a prescription drug-pricing bill that blends Republican and Democratic proposals: The legislative plan would expand the Trump administration’s international reference pricing concept to span the entire U.S. drug market and includes a Democratic proposal to give the government power to invalidate brand-drug makers’ exclusivity if their drug prices are deemed excessively high.

Some lawmakers and congressional staff don’t expect a big legislative push for 340B reform in the next Congress, but Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) says he is optimistic his legislation to boost the program’s transparency and reporting could gather bipartisan support.