|
Presented by PhRMA: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Adam Cancryn | Presented by |  | | | With Darius Tahir 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. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning PULSE will not publish on Monday, Feb. 15. We'll be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, Feb. 16. | | | — One year into the pandemic, the U.S. still does not have the widespread public health tools needed to track and contain the coronavirus. — The Biden administration wants the Supreme Court to uphold Obamacare's constitutionality, reversing the government’s position during the Trump era. — The CDC is dropping quarantine recommendations for people who have been fully vaccinated. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE — where health care is and will always rightfully be two words. Tips to acancryn@politico.com. | | | | A message from PhRMA: As we usher in a new administration and Congress, there are many things on which we can all agree, like ending the pandemic. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue to develop treatments and vaccines to combat COVID-19, and we are working closely with governments, insurers and others to make sure vaccines and treatments are accessible and affordable. | | | | | | NEW YEAR, SAME PANDEMIC PROBLEMS — A year into the coronavirus crisis, the U.S. is still struggling to marshal the basic public health defenses — testing, contact tracing and wearing masks — necessary to contain the virus’ nationwide spread, POLITICO’s Joanne Kenen reports . And now, it’s also well behind on the genetic surveillance critical to tracking a series of highly contagious new Covid variants. THE BULK OF THE U.S. RESPONSE at this point is dependent on vaccinating as many people as possible and hoping the nation can reach herd immunity faster than the next batch of variants can take hold. But “we never fixed the fundamentals,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. The U.S. has sequenced about 0.5 percent of all positive samples from Covid-19 testing, well below the 5 to 10 percent required to get a clear picture of which new strains are spreading where. There are still shortages of tests and personal protective equipment. And in many places, the virus is still too prevalent for contact tracing to be worthwhile. THOSE ARE ISSUES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION won’t be able to fix quickly, even as it vows an all-out response effort. President Joe Biden has made little progress in convincing states to tighten mask mandates and is mired in an effort to reopen schools, a move that’s pitted him against teachers unions. And despite Biden touting his willingness to use the Defense Production Act, ramping up manufacturing of PPE and other supplies will still take time. All this means the country’s best hope is also a massively complicated logistical challenge: handing out hundreds of millions of vaccine doses over the next several months and betting that the fragile supply chain and hastily constructed state distribution systems will hold up long enough to of the U.S. to inoculate its way out of the crisis. BIDEN TO SCOTUS: KEEP OBAMACARE ALIVE — The Biden administration is withdrawing federal support for a legal challenge aimed at eliminating the Affordable Care Act, in the latest twist in the lengthy court battle over Obamacare, POLITICO’s Susannah Luthi reports. The Trump administration had previously backed the lawsuit brought by GOP-led states, even as legal experts derided the case as weak and Democrats — and even some Republicans — opposed the prospect of wiping out Obamacare in its entirety. — Still, the move is more symbolic than substantive. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments shortly after Election Day and is expected to rule on Obamacare’s constitutionality in the coming weeks or months. And the Biden administration isn’t asking to file any more briefs or hold new hearings, signaling its confidence that the court will rule in the landmark health law’s favor. CDC : NO QUARANTINE NEEDED FOR VACCINATED PEOPLE — The health agency altered its Covid-19 guidelines on Wednesday, dropping quarantine requirements for those who may have been exposed to the virus but are already fully vaccinated. The update applies to people exposed to Covid more than two weeks after their final dose but within three months from that date. They must also have remained asymptomatic in the days since the exposure. But while the CDC allowed that it’s still unclear how easily vaccinated people can transmit Covid, the agency said “individual and societal benefits of avoiding unnecessary quarantine may outweigh the potential but unknown risk of transmission.” | | | | THE INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO CONGRESS: Looking for the latest on the Schumer/McConnell dynamic or the increasing tensions in the House? What are the latest whispers coming out of the Speaker's Lobby? Just leave it to Beavers... New author Olivia Beavers delivers the scoop in Huddle, the morning Capitol Hill must-read with assists from POLITICO's deeply sourced Congress team. Subscribe to Huddle today. | | | | | | | | SOUTH AFRICAN VARIANT ARRIVES IN CALIFORNIA — A more infectious coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa has shown up in California for the first time, POLITICO’s Jeremy B. White reports. There are two confirmed cases so far, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced, both of which are located within the greater San Francisco Bay Area. California marks at least the fifth state where this variant has appeared, raising the prospect that its spread could undercut efforts to contain the virus. | | | |   | | | | | Inside the Humphrey Building | | DELAURO URGES OVERHAUL OF PROGRAM FOR UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN — The House’s top appropriator is calling on the Biden administration to revamp how the government handles unaccompanied immigrant children , amid plans to open an influx facility to handle the rising number of minors entering the U.S. “I have long fought to end the use of influx facilities given the previous Administration’s decision to use them to warehouse children, skirting state and federal standards of care,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) wrote to Biden and his nominee for HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra. In the letter, DeLauro listed a series of standards that HHS should impose in hopes of limiting the population of unaccompanied children, including barring children who already have advocates or legal counsel from being moved to an influx center and ensuring detained children have unlimited telephone and video visitation with parents and family members. DeLauro — who led Democrats’ opposition to the Trump administration’s child separation policy in 2018 — also warned Biden and Becerra not to allow children to again be separated from their family members. BIDEN HHS CONTINUES MEDICAL RECORDS SCRUTINY — The department’s Office for Civil Rights is fining Renown Health $75,000 in a settlement over the Nevada nonprofit health system’s inability to give patients their medical records in a timely manner, POLITICO’s Darius Tahir writes. The move is an early signal that Trump-era scrutiny of health information access could carry over into the Biden administration, industry observers said. Biden previously focused on the issue as part of his work on the Cancer Moonshot during the Obama administration, where he advocated for greater access to health records. “I would be surprised if there is a push to stop” that kind of governmental oversight, Kirk Nahra, a privacy lawyer with WilmerHale, told Darius. “Making sure patients can get their data is a pretty popular issue.” | | | COVID DEATHS HIGHER AT NURSING HOMES WITH MORE NONWHITE RESIDENTS — Nursing homes where more than 40 percent of the population were people of color saw residents die from Covid-19 at more than triple the rate of those with higher proportions of white residents, according to a new study from University of Chicago researchers. The investigation, which used CMS data, found that facilities with largest percentages of nonwhite residents had 3.3-fold higher Covid death rates than facilities with the highest number of whtie residents. The number of infections also fell as the percentage of white residents in nursing homes rose. “Researchers have consistently reported that segregation is present in nursing homes and that nursing homes with higher proportions of non-White residents are associated with worse-quality care,” the researchers wrote. “Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated this inequity.” | | | | A message from PhRMA: Despite our divisions, there are many things on which Americans agree. The biopharmaceutical industry is committed to working with Congress and the new administration to:
• End the pandemic. The industry remains committed to getting COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to patients, and we are working closely with governments, insurers and others to make sure they are accessible and affordable.
• Make health care better and more affordable. People want quality, affordable health coverage that works when they need it. We support solutions that will help patients better afford their medicines and protect access to innovation today and in the future.
• Build a more just, equitable society. We must address systemic racism, as has been made clear by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others and the outsized impact of the pandemic on Black and Brown communities. We remain committed to this important issue on behalf of our communities, the patients we serve and our employees. | | | | | | The roughly half-million primary care doctors in the U.S. have been left out of the vaccine rollout, The New York Times’ Reed Abelson reports. The Times’ Dan Barry chronicles how a Texas doctor’s desperate scramble to give out Covid vaccine doses before they expired ended in his firing and theft charges. The Biden administration is forcing nursing schools to pay back funds that the government erroneously sent them for nearly two decades, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs reports. | | | | TRACK THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: President Biden's cabinet is getting confirmed, bringing change to agencies and departments across the Executive Branch. From the West Wing to Foggy Bottom, track the first 100 days of the Biden administration with Transition Playbook, our scoop-filled newsletter that chronicles the policies, people, and emerging power centers of the new administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
