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Presented by Better Medicare Alliance: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | | |  | | By Rachel Roubein | Presented by |  | | With Adam Cancryn and Brianna Ehley. 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.
| | | — The Biden administration has launched a charm offensive on governors, hoping to nudge them toward the White House’s preferred Covid policies. — Biden has chosen Liz Fowler, an Obamacare veteran, to lead the influential CMS Innovation Center. — The U.S. will not donate coronavirus shots to poor countries before most Americans are vaccinated. THANK GOODNESS IT’S FRIDAY. Much like Dolly Parton, PULSE doesn’t need to be put on a pedestal — we’re good with tips. Send them over to your regular host: acancryn@politico.com. | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance: Medicare Advantage isn’t just better health coverage for seniors, it’s a winning issue for policymakers. A new poll shows that Medicare Advantage has a 98% satisfaction rating and 93% of beneficiaries agree that a candidate’s support for Medicare Advantage is important to earn their vote. Together, we can protect and strengthen this bipartisan success story for the 26 million diverse Americans who count on Medicare Advantage’s care, coverage, and security. Learn more. | | | | | | AN UNEASY DANCE — President Joe Biden’s presidency hinges in large part on his success in handling the pandemic. But nearly a month into power, he’s beginning to discover just how much of that task is out of his control, POLITICO's Adam Cancryn, Christopher Cadelago and your host report. That’s left the White House locked in a delicate dance with governors over reopening schools, distributing coronavirus shots and enforcing mask mandates. Governors, in turn, are starting to push back on the first federal efforts to pressure them. — The most recent public episode played out this week, with governors accusing the administration’s vaccine data of making them look bad. And in private, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appealed directly to top White House officials, telling them that states need to know “what’s going where, who controls what and who doesn’t control what,” according to notes of the call obtained by PULSE. BIDEN’S TEAM IS WARY OF ALIENATING STATE LEADERS as the new president pitches himself as an equal partner. That’s a turn-around from the Trump era, when most decisions were punted to the states, and governors would frequently face the former president’s wrath on Twitter. — The White House has instituted a series of weekly calls with state officials, including a Tuesday all-governors session and a separate set of meetings with states grouped by region, to troubleshoot pandemic response problems and push Biden’s initiatives, according to multiple sources. “It’s not a very top-down structure anymore,” said George Helmy, chief of staff to New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. BIDEN BUILDS OUT CMS — The Biden administration has picked Fowler to lead the high-profile CMS office charged with testing new health care ideas, two sources tell Adam and your guest host, one day after news leaked that Chiquita Brooks-LaSure has been tapped to helm the trillion-dollar agency. Fowler has a long health care resume. She helped draft and implement the Affordable Care Act, before leaving HHS to work at the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. Most recently, she served as an executive vice president at the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund. — The CMS Innovation Center, which the ACA created, wields significant power over how health care is funded and delivered. And while the Biden administration hasn’t laid out specific plans for the office, it could pursue its own set of drug pricing reforms, as well as other efforts to drive down the sky-high cost of care. AND AT THE HUMPHREY BUILDING, Virginia Medicaid official Rachel Pryor is joining the Biden administration’s health department, two people familiar with the move told Adam. She will likely be one of a handful of counselors to the HHS secretary, with a particular focus on Medicaid issues, one person said. Pryor is currently the deputy director of administration at the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services, and was previously the senior health policy advisor for House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats. (HHS declined to comment, and Pryor did not respond to emails seeking comment.)
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| | | U.S. WON’T SHARE SHOTS UNTIL AMERICANS GET VACCINATED — On Thursday, and on the eve of a G7 virtual meeting where world leaders are set to address anxiety over the global vaccine rollout, a senior administration official confirmed that the U.S. will not share any vaccines with poorer countries until its own population is vaccinated, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports. At the G7 meeting, which Biden will attend today, the president will instead announce the U.S. will use the $4 billion in funding Congress allocated to the vaccine alliance Gavi back in December to help procure coronavirus vaccines for poor countries, the senior official said. But global concern over the vaccine race is growing, as many other countries have been left behind. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to convince Biden and other G7 leaders to commit to immediately sharing 3 to 5 percent of their vaccine supply with poorer countries. | | | |   | | | | | | SUICIDE RATE DROPS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEARLY 15 YEARS — The U.S. suicide rate dropped in 2019 — the first decline since 2005, according to new CDC data released today. In the last 20 years, the age-adjusted suicide rate climbed to 14.2 per 100,000 people in 2018 before dropping to 13.9 per 100,000 in 2019, POLITICO’s Brianna Ehley writes. A caveat: There is no federal data yet on suicides in 2020, and health experts have warned that the pandemic has taken an immense toll on Americans’ mental health. — Data from last summer painted a bleak portrait of the nation’s mental health during the pandemic. One in four young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 said they had considered suicide in the past month because of the effects of the coronavirus, according to a CDC survey conducted in June. And more than 40 percent of U.S. adults had experienced a mental or behavioral health condition stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. | | | FIRST IN PULSE: MORE THAN 220 GROUPS SUPPORT STIMULUS BILL’S HEALTH PROVISIONS — A coalition of state and national health organizations are urging congressional leaders to swiftly pass a coronavirus relief bill with measures to expand health coverage and make it more affordable, particularly for people who have lost their jobs. In a letter, the groups — such as Community Catalyst, Doctors for America and the Florida Policy Institute — pointed to specific provisions they support, such as providing incentives for holdout states to expand Medicaid and limiting premiums for Obamacare.
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| | | FIRST IN PULSE: ADVOCATES PUSH FOR HIGHER PAY FOR HEALTH CENTERS — More than 60 groups, including the National Association of Community Health Centers, The AIDS Institute and the National Council for Behavioral Health, are pressing CMS to pay health centers reasonable rates for immunizing vulnerable populations. — Among their concerns, as expressed in a letter sent today: It can take up to 12 to 18 months for CMS to reimburse health centers for doling out shots to Medicare beneficiaries, and in some states, health centers are paid very little for their efforts to give shots to Medicaid patients. The groups also argued the reimbursement rates need to better account for the cost of hiring additional staff, as well as paying for training, vaccine outreach, transportation for patients and more. | | A message from Better Medicare Alliance: For seniors, health care has never been more important. As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, 26 million Americans from all walks of life are finding care, coverage, and security from the protection that Medicare Advantage provides. A new poll, taken at the height of the public health crisis, shows that:
· 98% of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are satisfied with their health plan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic
· 97% of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are satisfied with their network of physicians, hospitals, and specialists
· 95% of all seniors agree it’s important for beneficiaries to have a choice in coverage other than Traditional Medicare
· 93% of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries say a candidate’s support for MA is important to earn their vote
Let’s come together to protect and strengthen Medicare Advantage’s bipartisan success story. Learn more. | | | | | | Texans must weigh the risks of the pandemic after storms have left millions without heat, The Associated Press’ Jake Bleiberg, Leah Willingham and Jocelyn Noveck report. Amid the pandemic, doctors have had to make unenviable decisions over which patients get lifesaving treatments, ProPublica’s David Armstrong and Marshall Allen report. The Washington Post’s Christopher Rowland dives into one of the difficulties of boosting vaccine supply: increasing production of once-niche ingredients. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
