| | | |   | Happy Thursday, D.C. Diagnosis readers! I hope you’re ready to get wonky today. Also, if you have any theories as to what office HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra might be saving his campaign funds for (credit to a great catch by Insider), I’m all ears at rachel.cohrs@statnews.com. | | | Meet the senior adviser heading up Medicare’s drug pricing staffing Attention, drug pricing policy wonks of Washington: Medicare is going to be hiring to fill slots in its new drug price negotiation group, and it’s going to be doing it fast. One official in particular has been spearheading the effort to hire a small army of government bureaucrats, per three sources familiar with the process. She’s looking to hire 95 experts with pharmaceutical experience, economists, data analysts, regulatory analysts, and managers.
Her experience includes several stints in the Obama administration, and also a year working on drug pricing at Arnold Ventures. Find out more about the effort in my new story out this morning. | What exactly does Nick Florko write about these days?  Caption (Credit) Your former D.C. Diagnosis host Nick Florko here. As STAT’s inaugural reporter on “the commercial determinants of health,” I get a lot of questions about what exactly I write about. Recently I even got asked by a not-to-be-named former federal health official if I made the term up. I did not make the term up. To help introduce the new focus to our readers, STAT surveyed some of the world’s premier experts in the field. We asked them big questions – like how they defined the topic, how they think America is doing at addressing the commercial determinants of health, and what policies they’d pursue if they had their druthers. For the most part, they had a diversity of views. But there was one thing they all agreed on: America is not doing well. The highest grade anyone gave us was a C+.
In short, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. The beat encompasses everything from how tobacco companies influence FDA regulations, to how food companies sway nutrition research and no topic is off limits. (Trust me, if my recent expense reports are any indication, you’ll be seeing a lot of very unique stories coming from me in the next few months.) If you’ve got ideas or tips, send ‘em my way at nicholas.florko@statnews.com. And meantime, check out what the experts have to say here. | Federal government proposes takeover of error-ridden insurance directories Insurance companies offer directories that are supposed to help patients navigate the minefield of avoiding out-of-network providers, but they’re ridden with errors. The Biden administration wants to take over and keep all the data in one central place, my colleague Bob Herman reports. If there’s only one directory, providers might be more likely to actually update it, the administration argues. CMS is soliciting feedback on the idea until Dec. 6. | Early detection can make all the difference in beating breast cancer Breast cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer among women globally. According to the WHO, in 2020 alone, 2.3 million women worldwide were diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 women died from the disease. Hologic is dedicated to transforming breast cancer screening and diagnosis to ensure radiologists can find even the most invasive cancers at the earliest stage possible. Learn how Hologic is making health a priority at every stage of a woman’s life. | Alzheimer’s drug dispute spills into Congress An important lawmaker just dropped a bill inspired by Eisai and Biogen’s promising clinical trial results for its Alzheimer’s treatment lecanemab, ahead of what could be a contentious fight over Medicare coverage for the drug.
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who’s widely seen as a frontrunner to chair the powerful Ways & Means Committee if Republicans win back the House, introduced a bill yesterday that would force Medicare to make coverage decisions on individual drugs, not classes of drugs — a clear rebuke to Medicare’s restrictive, wide-ranging coverage decision based on data related to Biogen’s Aduhelm. As avid D.C. Diagnosis readers will remember from last week, Aduhelm’s lackluster data led CMS to create coverage rules that would force Eisai and Biogen to jump through extra hoops to get Medicare coverage, even if the drug is fully approved and benefits patients clinically. That could mean months of delays for patients as the regulatory process plays out. The Alzheimer’s Association supports Buchanan’s bill. “No two treatments are the same, even if they are in the same class of drug, and CMS should not determine coverage based on type of treatment,” said Robert Egge, the group’s chief public policy officer. | Who’s to blame for health care costs? Lobbyists, apparently Americans of both parties blame health care industry lobbying for the stubborn lack of progress in lowering patients’ health care costs, per a new West Health Policy Center-Gallup survey of more than 5,500 adults released this morning. The top two barriers to cost containment were health care industry lobbying and partisan politics, with 79% of respondents saying that the two factors were “major barriers” to reducing costs for patients. Another interesting tidbit: when asked about several policies to regulate health care costs, the second-most popular policy behind allowing the government to negotiate drug prices was allowing the government to limit how much hospitals can charge. There was a big party divide on that question, however – 91% of Democrats supported price limits, compared with 59% of Republicans. | What we're reading - Call it data liberation day: Patients can now access all their health records digitally, STAT
- Which drug prices will Medicare negotiate first? A physicians’ perspective, Health Affairs
- Read STAT's coverage of two big Nobel announcements: the prize in medicine, and the prize in chemistry
- White House launch of Operation Warp Speed 2.0 dragged down by funding problems and pandemic fatigue, Politico
| | | Thanks for reading! More next week,  | |
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