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Presented by PhRMA: Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy. | | | | |  | | By Sarah Owermohle and Krista Mahr | | | With help from Alice Miranda Ollstein and Lauren Gardner 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.
| | | — Michigan advocates are intensifying efforts to codify abortion rights in their constitution. — Get ready for the youngest kids’ vaccines: The White House is prepping for launch. — Ventilation improvements are inconsistent across schools, meaning many low-income kids aren’t seeing better systems. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE — A new OSTP director is on the horizon, and a leading candidate has a work history that could help fuel ARPA-H. Send news and tips to sowermohle@politico.com and kmahr@politico.com.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Nearly half of insured Americans who take prescription medicines encounter barriers that delay or limit their access to medicines. In a new report, learn more about the abusive insurance practices that can stand between patients and the care they need. | | | | | | | 
Michigan abortion advocates are mobilizing to get hundreds of thousands of signatures to add abortion rights to the state constitution. | Alice Ollstein/POLITICO | INSIDE MICHIGAN’S ABORTION RIGHTS BATTLE — Alice just returned from Michigan, one of more than 20 states where abortion rights could soon disappear if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade — because a 1931 law that bans the procedure with no exemptions for rape or incest is still on the books. While there, Alice took a deep dive into a campaign to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures by mid-July so a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights can be put on the November ballot. It’s just one of several tactics Democratic and allied groups are using to try to prevent abortion from being banned in the state if federal protections fall, but it’s seen as more dependable than the lawsuits, gubernatorial executive orders or pledges of prosecutorial restraint also underway. Anti-abortion groups have already begun pushing back, setting up a tip line for people to report sightings of the canvassers so they can confront them and pass out their own literature, and they’re planning a much bigger effort if the amendment meets the signature threshold by the summer deadline. While the ballot initiative campaign was already underway earlier this year, it received a massive jolt when POLITICO published a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe. In the week that followed, more than 25,000 Michiganders volunteered to collect signatures, and the groups are now confident they’ll qualify for the ballot. “[Justice] Sam Alito has been our best recruiter,” Michael Hertz, a retired OB-GYN who leads a team of volunteer canvassers in Beulah, Michigan, told Alice. “Eventually, I will write him a ‘thank-you' note.” WHITE HOUSE PLOTS PEDIATRIC COVID VAX STRATEGY — Senior administration officials outlined to reporters Wednesday evening their plans for distributing Covid-19 vaccines for the youngest Americans should they be authorized and recommended for use by health agencies next week, Lauren reports. The expectation: The Biden administration expects most parents to get their kids immunized by their pediatricians or primary care providers, but it’s also working to ensure vaccines are available at health centers and rural health clinics, children’s hospitals and pharmacies. “We really do want to reach anybody who wants to get a vaccine,” one of the officials said. But so far, less than half of the 5 million doses initially made available to states and jurisdictions for pre-order have been snapped up, another official said. Most were Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines — even though an equal number of those shots and Moderna's were offered. The reality: The official said the slow pace of orders was “not untypical to what we’ve seen in previous waves,” adding that the administration is still getting the word out to states that doses are available to claim. They declined to say which states have yet to order vaccines, adding they anticipate all will have claimed some by the end of the ordering period. HHS is also collaborating with several organizations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Association of Children’s Museums and local community-focused groups — to launch a public education campaign that would answer the questions of parents who may be undecided on inoculating their children against Covid-19, amplifying the trusted messenger approach.
| | | | A message from PhRMA:   | | | | | | | 
School ventilation has been a critical component of return-to-normal policies but hasn't been consistently improved. | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images | RURAL SCHOOLS FALL BEHIND ON VENTILATION — Rural schools are taking fewer measures to improve the ventilation in buildings to reduce the possible spread of Covid-19, according to a new study published in the CDC’s MMWR, despite higher death rates in rural areas throughout most of the pandemic. The study, which looked at a nationwide sample of K-12 public schools in February and March 2022, found both rural and mid-level poverty schools were far less likely to implement expensive and powerful interventions like using portable HEPA filtration systems or replacing and upgrading their HVAC systems. Students at poor, rural schools have been breathing worse air for years. In 2020, a Government Accountability Office study found that about 36,000 schools across the U.S. needed HVAC improvements; some schools had no HVAC systems at all. Rural and low-income schools have disproportionately bad infrastructure compared with their urban and wealthier counterparts. What’s the government doing? The American Rescue Plan included $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief Fund to help schools safely reopen and help prevent the spread of Covid-19, including improving ventilation, but it’s clear that schools aren’t accessing those funds equally. The strategies that schools across geographic areas and income levels used the most were — unsurprisingly — the ones that cost the least: opening doors and windows or moving activities outside. CDC LAUNCHES NEW HEAT TRACKER — The agency released its newest version of the heat and health tracker, an interactive map showing the number of emergency room visits linked to heat in different counties. The summer is here, bringing on a new wave of heat-related emergencies and their lasting repercussions. Last year alone, a tragic heat wave hit the Pacific Northwest, resulting in hundreds of deaths across the U.S. and Canada. The new tracker arrives amid the Health and Human Services Department’s efforts to get a new Office of Environmental Justice off the ground, housed inside its still-unfunded Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has insisted climate change is already a public health emergency and pressed Congress for $3 million to fund the climate change office.
| | | | DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | DEMS PRESS CMS FOR FAMILY-PLANNING PROTECTIONS — Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) on Wednesday dispatched a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, urging the agency to enforce Medicaid protections for family-planning providers. Medicaid allows enrollees to visit the health care providers of their choice, but some states have excluded Planned Parenthood and other family-planning clinics from their Medicaid programs, Reps. Wyden and Pallone point out. “These state efforts obstruct access to family planning services in addition to cancer screenings, vaccinations, and other important preventive care services for millions of people,” particularly disadvantaged people, the committee leaders wrote. They asked for a response by June 24 on how CMS plans to address the issue, underscoring that it has taken fresh urgency with the looming Supreme Court decision expected to overturn Roe v. Wade. HOUSE PASSES FDA USER FEE PACKAGE — The House late Wednesday passed a legislative package to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration’s medical product user fee programs in a 392-28 suspension vote. The legislation , which extends the agency’s brand drug, generic drug, biosimilar and medical device user fee programs for another five years, also contains a number of riders, including efforts to boost clinical trial diversity and tweaks to the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. The Senate HELP Committee is scheduled to mark up its own user fee reauthorization bill on Tuesday.
| | | WHAT HAPPENED WITH INFANT FORMULA — White House officials initially thought the situation was under control when a major infant formula plant shut down and issued a recall in February. Biden officials now privately acknowledge they were kept in the dark about the true scope of the emerging shortages because they had incomplete data for retail stock rates of infant formula, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee writes. The rush by the country’s leading formula companies to push all their reserve stocks into the market may also have distorted the data, giving the White House a false sense of security. Behind the scenes: The White House’s Domestic Policy Council and National Economic Council had been tracking the problem but concluded that the recall by Abbott Nutrition didn’t warrant involvement by the president and top staff, who were consumed by the early stages of the war in Ukraine at the time, according to three White House officials. “There were a million crises going on,” said one. “That doesn’t mean that this wasn’t also a crisis; it just wasn’t elevated to a top-level crisis.” That elevation didn’t happen until early May, according to the three officials — only after desperate parents began flooding social media with images of empty store shelves and everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to potential 2024 presidential candidate Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) began tweeting about the formula shortages. The White House maintains that it took immediate action when data the administration was tracking showed infant formula supplies dropping in April. And it notes that sales and production of infant formula have increased this year despite the shortages.
| | | | 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. | | | | | | | | Frederick Chen is joining the American Medical Association as chief health and science officer. Chen most recently served as professor and vice chair for clinical services at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. He also has worked as chief of family medicine at Harborview Medical Center.
| | | Two Omicron subvariants are gaining ground in the U.S., now accounting for 13 percent of new cases, The New York Times’ Emily Anthes reports. A new lawsuit challenges Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their children after a teen attempted suicide amid one probe, The Texas Tribune’s Eleanor Klibanoff reports.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: According to data just released, insurance isn't working for too many patients. Despite paying premiums each month, Americans continue to face insurmountable affordability and access issues:
- Roughly half (49%) of insured patients who take prescription medicines report facing insurance barriers like prior authorization and “fail first” when trying to access their medicines.
- More than a third (35%) of insured Americans report spending more in out-of-pocket costs in the last 30 days than they could afford.
Americans need better coverage that puts patients first. Read more in PhRMA’s latest Patient Experience Survey. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
