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Presented by HCA Healthcare: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle | | | With Rachel Roubein and Carmen Paun Editor’s Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our s each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
| | | — President Joe Biden is making a drug price overhaul the centerpiece of his early push for a $3.5 trillion spending package. — A CDC advisory panel is expected to vote on recommending third Covid-19 vaccines for immunocompromised adults. — The Biden administration is planning a revamp of CMS' Innovation Center, with a greater focus on health equity. WELCOME TO FRIDAY PULSE — where even with all the hype (and despite the fact the Yankees were involved) we've gotta admit: The Field of Dreams game was pretty cool. PULSE believes that if you solicit them, the tips will come: acancryn@politico.com and sowermohle@politico.com. | | A message from HCA Healthcare: HCA Healthcare prioritizes investing in our communities. We contributed to community infrastructure and economic development through $4.1 billion federal, state and local taxes incurred in 2020. Additionally, we returned or repaid early approximately $6 billion in CARES Act funds. We employ 275,000+ colleagues across 20 states, and in 2020, we provided an estimated $3.4 billion in the delivery of charity care, uninsured discounts and other uncompensated care.
See how we show up for our communities. | | | | | | WHITE HOUSE KICKS OFF DRUG PRICE REFORM PUSH — Biden appealed to Congress on Thursday to pass ambitious legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and cap out-of-pocket costs. But his 20-minute speech from the White House was vague on exactly what form those Medicare negotiations should take — a reflection of the protracted debate happening on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Sarah writes. Here’s what is key for Biden officials, no matter where Hill Democrats end up: Nearly nine in 10 Americans, regardless of political affiliation, support letting the government negotiate prices, according to June polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation. That makes Medicare negotiation a must-have in the White House’s eyes, as Democrats negotiate their planned $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill — an initiative that will rely heavily on savings created by lowering drug prices. Biden, meanwhile, sought to strike a balance between railing against the “outrageous” pricing practices of the pharmaceutical industry and applauding its innovations – especially throughout the last pandemic-ravaged year. “Let me start by acknowledging groundbreaking, life-saving work many pharmaceutical companies are doing,” he said. “But we can make a distinction between developing these breakthroughs to jack up prices on a range of medications, or a range of everyday diseases and conditions.” Biden also touted the administration’s work with states and tribes to import medicines from Canada — even though HHS has not authorized any state importation plan since the Trump administration finalized its regulations last September. Still, the speech did little to soften up the drug industry. “Unfortunately, the policies the president outlined today would undermine access to life-saving medicines and fails to address an insurance system that shifts the cost of treatments onto vulnerable patients,” PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl said in a statement. | | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | TODAY: CDC PANEL WEIGHS THIRD SHOTS — The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel will review evidence for giving immunocompromised adults a third Covid-19 vaccine dose, with the group slated to vote on recommending the move by early afternoon. The panel is widely expected to endorse the additional shot, after the FDA late Thursday expanded its authorization of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines to accommodate for the third dose. Biden officials have emphasized the eligible population will be narrow, and include the fewer than 7 million immune-weakened adults considered most vulnerable. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky previewed the move on Thursday, pointing to evidence that an extra dose could boost the antibody response in immunocompromised people. Yet she and infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci also went out of their way to stress that this one decision won’t necessarily open the door to boosters for all Americans. “To be clear, this is a very small population,” Walensky said, with Fauci later emphasizing that while booster shots for a broader population will eventually be needed, “we do not believe others — elderly or non-elderly — who are not immunocompromised need a vaccine at this moment.” That hasn’t stopped some from going out and getting boosters anyway, a development Walensky warned was disrupting the CDC’s work. While the agency can track how many unauthorized extra shots are being handed out, she said, “it does undermine our ability to monitor safety in these contexts.” BIDEN TO REVAMP CMS INNOVATION CENTER — Top CMS officials laid out a 10-year vision for revamping the center that hinges on rolling out fewer Medicare payment experiments and focusing on health equity in its new projects, POLITICO’s Rachel Roubein reports. Many of the agency’s new leaders helped draft the Affordable Care Act, which created the Innovation Center nearly a dozen years ago. CMMI has launched more than 50 models and is running 28 models at the same time. But offering too many payment models “can create opposing, even conflicting incentives,” CMS officials wrote in a blog post in Health Affairs. Instead, they pitched launching fewer models and, rather, scaling up those that work. In a bid to promote health equity, the agency plans to include more providers serving low-income and racially diverse populations in its Medicare payment experiments. | | | |   | | | | | | LARGEST TEACHERS UNION BACKS VAX MANDATES — The National Education Association is endorsing Covid-19 vaccine requirements for school employees, aligning the country’s biggest teachers union with Biden administration efforts to take a harder line on vaccinations. The organization on Thursday said educators should have an option to submit to regular testing as an alternative, POLITICO’s Juan Perez Jr. reports. But it is encouraging its 3 million members to get vaccinated, calling it a “necessary step to ensure the safety” of school workers and students. The NEA’s position goes further than the American Federation of Teachers, another influential union that has stopped short of fully backing vaccine requirements. Instead, the AFT is encouraging workers to negotiate vaccination parameters with local government and school systems. Biden’s Education Department has already argued for vaccine mandates for teachers and other school staff, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently rolled out vaccination requirements for school employees statewide. FLORIDA ERECTING COVID TREATMENT CENTERS — The state will set up mobile units to administer antibody treatments for those battling Covid-19, as it grapples with a surge of infections, POLITICO’s Gary Fineout reports. The move is the first concrete action that GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken so far to curb the recent outbreaks, after weeks spent downplaying the threat and rejecting calls to impose mask mandates or other public health restrictions. The units will offer monoclonal antibody treatments in what DeSantis called an effort to relieve the pressure on Florida providers—– even though the cocktail is not recommended for those hospitalized with Covid-19. The treatment is also expensive and time-consuming, factors that health experts in the state warned could limit uptake. DeSantis has feuded with the Biden administration in recent days over his threats to pull funding from schools that try to impose masking requirements, despite a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases. On Thursday, White House pandemic response coordinator Jeff Zients singled out Florida as one of two states that together account for nearly 40 percent of the nation’s new Covid-19 hospitalizations. WHO: COVID ORIGINS HUNT CAN’T RULE OUT LAB LEAK — The World Health Organization is rejecting calls to abandon its investigation into whether Covid-19 could have originated in a lab, saying Thursday that a March report on the virus’ origins produced by international and Chinese experts did not present sufficient evidence to rule out the so-called lab leak theory. The WHO’s statement came in response to letters the U.N. health body received from China and other countries questioning the basis for further studies of the lab leak hypothesis, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports. Those nations “have also suggested the origins study has been politicized, or that WHO has acted due to political pressure,” the organization said. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has already called for audits of labs and other research institutions in Wuhan. And the organization’s latest statement came as the head of an expert team that visited China earlier this year to study Covid-19’s origins told Danish media that his Chinese counterpart agreed to discuss the lab leak theory only on condition that no further studies of the possibility be recommended. China has maintained that the virus originated elsewhere, deeming the lab leak theory the equivalent of a political attack fueled by the U.S. | | Inside the Humphrey Building | | FIRST IN PULSE: HHS SENDS $20M TO AID HAWAIIAN HEALTH CARE — The department will distribute $20 million among six organizations that provide health services to Native Hawaiian communities, in the latest round of American Rescue Plan funding allocations. HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration is responsible for doling out the money to the groups, which cater to more than 7,000 Native Hawaiians who face difficulties accessing health care — such as geographic isolation. | | | Kimberlee Wyche Etheridge is joining the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials as its senior vice president of health equity and diversity initiatives. She was previously interim director of Meharry Medical College’s Master of Science in Public Health Program.
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| | | For the Clarion Ledger, Lee O. Sanderlin chronicles the re-establishment of a Mississippi field hospital amid a steep rise in Covid-19 cases. Some health experts believe the CDC could have avoided a lot of Delta-related confusion by issuing a simple message : everybody should mask up again, regardless of where they live, The New York Times’ Roni Caryn Rabin writes. New Orleans is the latest city to require that people show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, bars and other indoor venues, Gambit reporter Sarah Ravits writes. | | A message from HCA Healthcare: At HCA Healthcare, investing in the communities where we work and live is a priority. We are proud to contribute to community infrastructure and economic development through the $4.1 billion federal, state and local taxes we incurred in 2020. In addition, HCA Healthcare returned or repaid early approximately $6 billion in CARES Act funds because it was the right thing to do.
We invest in other ways, as well. We employ over 275,000 colleagues across 20 states, and made $2.8 billion in capital investments last year. We also provide significant financial benefits to patients throughout our communities; in 2020, we provided an estimated $3.4 billion in the delivery of charity care, uninsured discounts and other uncompensated care.
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