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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 Adam Cancryn | Presented by |  | | | With 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 set to give more updates on coronavirus vaccine supplies and will visit a Virginia vaccination site. — The prospect of another filibuster-proof stimulus bill could embolden Democrats as they contemplate multibillion-dollar drug pricing changes. — Arkansas’ governor vetoed a bill to outlaw providing gender-related care to transgender youth, but similar legislation persists in other states. WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE — America’s pastime is stressing me out. Send tips and pandemic-safe pastimes to sowermohle@politico.com and Adam at acancryn@politico.com. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Did you know more than 90% of all medicines dispensed in the United States are lower-cost generic medicines, compared to 69% in other OECD countries? Or that prices for generics here are lower, on average, than in other countries? Cross-country comparisons create confusion about medicine prices in the United States and abroad. Learn more. | | | | | | MORE VACCINE UPDATES TODAY — Biden is visiting a coronavirus vaccination site this afternoon at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, followed by remarks on the state of the vaccination campaign back at the White House. After last week’s stumbles with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the president might be eager to draw attention to some positive developments. The country hit a record high of 4 million vaccinations in one day on Saturday, according to CDC data. And the mass vaccination sites he promised in late March are shaping up: Covid-19 senior advisor Andy Slavitt announced Monday that three new sites, in South Carolina, Colorado and Minnesota will open soon. VP Watch: Vice President Kamala Harris will also tour a vaccine site today, set up by the Chicago Federation of Labor and city health authorities. It’s the first vaccination site established by a union in the U.S. DEMOCRATS CLEARED TO PUSH HEALTH REFORMS PAST FILIBUSTER — Democrats are set up to pass Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan by revisiting the budget process they used to approve his first coronavirus relief package, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday. In other words: Last time they didn’t have Republican support — and this time they won’t need it either, according to Schumer’s interpretation of a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian, our Caitlin Emma writes. Why it matters: That read of the decision would be a major expansion of the reconciliation process, under which bills are passed with a simple Senate majority. And that lower threshold for the Democratic Senate majority would be key for passing Democrats’ health care priorities, including major drug pricing reforms . House Democrats are pushing for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s price negotiation bill, formerly known as H.R. 3, to be resurrected and stuck in the package as a multibillion fund for costly infrastructure plans. Many Senate Democrats are on board with the drug pricing bill, but even with Monday’s news, they’ll need every vote in their caucus. Other options could include restructuring Medicare Part D payments and fining drugmakers for price hikes beyond inflation — both parts of a bipartisan plan formulated by Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and his predecessor atop the committee, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), in the last legislative session. DEMOCRATS’ TAX PROPOSAL COULD KNOCK DRUGMAKERS — Three Senate Democrats unveiled a proposal Monday to raise taxes on multinational corporations, and pharmaceutical companies fear it could hit them hard. The framework, released by Wyden plus Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), is largely in line with the Biden administration’s tax proposal last week but goes further on changes to the international tax system, writes POLITICO’s Brian Faler. What it means: Both the senators’ proposal and Biden’s plan would hike the tax rates on companies’ international income on intangible assets such as patents — a key part of drugmakers’ global business. “The international tax system should focus on rewarding companies that invest in the US and its workers, stop incentivizing corporations to shift jobs and investment abroad, and ensure that big corporations are paying their fair share,” the senators wrote in their proposal.
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| | | ARKANSAS GOVERNOR HALTS TRANSGENDER CARE BAN — Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday vetoed legislation that would have made the state the first to bar doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors, describing the measure as a “vast government overreach.” The governor, a Republican, said he worried the legislation would set a new standard for government interference with medical care, our Dan Goldberg writes. He also was concerned that did not make exceptions for patients already receiving treatment who would be forced to stop. “That makes my heart break to think about it,” Hutchinson said. The bill is the latest Republican-backed state measure that would curtail the rights of transgender youth. Conservative lawmakers have escalated efforts to pass similar bills in state legislatures this year, despite vehement opposition from medical experts and LGBTQ advocates. But the battle’s far from over in Arkansas. The Republican-controlled legislature can override Hutchison’s veto with simple majority votes in both chambers, a step he said they will likely pursue. Hutchison recently signed into law a bill excluding transgender girls and women from playng competitive sports on girl’s or women’s sports teams and another allowing doctors to refuse to treat patients based on moral or religious grounds. | | | |   | | | | | | BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TAPS VACCINE DIPLOMACY LEADER — The State Department on Monday named Gayle Smith, a former Obama administration official who led the American response to the Ebola crisis, to coordinate the United States’ global Covid response, our Benjamin Din reports “We have a duty to other countries to get the virus under control here in the United States,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in announcing Smith’s appointment. “But soon, the United States will need to step up our work and rise to the occasion worldwide because, again, only by stopping Covid globally will Americans be safe for the long term.” Blinken pointed to the administration’s vaccine loan to Mexico and Canada last month and said it is exploring options to share more vaccine doses with other countries, as the U.S.’ own supply ramps up. “I know that many countries are asking for the United States to do more,” he said. Smith, chief executive of the ONE Campaign to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, will be “on temporary assignment to the State Department,” the organization said in a release. Tom Hart, ONE’s executive director for North America, will serve as acting CEO during her stint. U.S. LOOKS TO EXPAND GLOBAL VACCINE EFFORT — The U.S. is set to launch a fundraising campaign on April 15 to raise more money to buy vaccines for the world’s 92 poorest countries through COVAX, the global vaccine equity effort. The main goal is to raise this year at least an extra $2 billion for Gavi, one of the organizations running COVAX. The funding drive marks an opportunity to start thinking about how COVAX can go beyond its initial target of vaccinating 20 percent of participating countries’ populations by the end of the year, said Jeremy Konyndyk, who coordinates Covid-19 efforts at USAID. “The signals that countries are giving now is that they don’t want to stop at 20 percent necessarily,” he told our Global Pulse author Carmen Paun. “With the risks that we have seen of the variants, the world can’t afford to stop at 20 percent.” Konyndyk didn’t provide a new percentage of the population that COVAX should cover, but many countries are hoping to be able to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible to end the acute phase of the pandemic. Refresher: The U.S. joined COVAX under Biden after the Trump administration declined. The government has since given $2 billion to buy vaccines and has promised $2 another billion to increase production and delivery of vaccines until the end of 2022.
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| | | New York’s Jeff Wise takes us on a deep dive on how Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine came to be — and how it gets to you. Contraceptive use rose substantially in the U.S. after the Affordable Care Act mandated that private health plans cover the products without out-of-pocket costs, researchers Nora Becker, Nancy Keating and Lydia Pace wrote in Health Affairs. They add it also reduced total health care spending because of less maternal care. A U.S. judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by residents of a New York City suburb accusing the World Health Organization of gross negligence in responding to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters’ Jonathan Stempel reports. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Looking at differences in medicine prices between the United States and other countries can be misleading, often ignoring complexities in the U.S. system and the repercussions of other countries’ reliance on government price setting policies. As the discussion unfolds, here are a few often overlooked facts:
• Americans have the most robust access to lifesaving medicines in the world.
• Americans benefit from robust generic competition.
• The world benefits from U.S. global leadership in biomedical innovation.
• Negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and payers drive down prices, but patients don’t always pay less.
• We need smart, patient-centered solutions for lowering drug costs.
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