| | | |   | | | | | Reeling from the price negotiation loss, PhRMA takes stock  (Mike Reddy for STAT) PhRMA, once a titanic lobbying powerhouse, has lost its edge.
Though the top drug lobby has warned for years that drug price negotiation would threaten its members’ very existence, the organization couldn’t muster the money or clout to stop an unprecedented policy signed into law by President Biden this August, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs writes.
Rachel spoke with nearly two dozen drug industry lobbyists, health care consultants, and academic experts to understand just what happened — and where PhRMA goes from here. For now, it seems the strategy is to lay low and reassess.
If anything, PhRMA is actually trying to moderate its opposition to the legislation. The group has decried the reforms, but also made an effort to emphasize its longtime support for other parts of the law, like its cap on Medicare patients’ costs for pharmacy drugs.
And the battle may not be over: As Rachel writes, PhRMA CEO Steve Ubl could deploy a key tactic from his years as a medical device lobbyist — delay, delay, delay the seismic regulations.
Read more on PhRMA’s big blow and where they go from here. | Health officials question China's Covid policy Biden officials are throwing distance between their Covid-19 strategy and the Chinese government’s continued crackdowns as protests over the latter’s stringent shutdown requirements build in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and other major cities.
The Chinese government’s approach, which includes confining millions of people to their homes as case counts rise, “has been very, very severe and rather draconian,” Biden chief medical adviser Tony Fauci told Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. They are “shutdowns without a seeming purpose,” he said.
White House Covid-19 coordinator Ashish Jha contrasted the American strategy in a same-day appearance on ABC’s This Week, telling host Martha Raddatz “we don’t think that’s realistic, certainly not realistic for the American people,” adding that it’d be “very difficult to sustain.” He stressed again that people need to get boosted, echoing comments from a press briefing last week on the administration’s six-week booster drive.
The senior officials’ comments come on the heels of virtually pre-pandemic levels of Thanksgiving travel, according to government and trade group projections. The FAA said this month that there’d be more than 48,000 domestic flights on Tuesday, Nov. 18 alone. Auto insurance group AAA projected that nearly 55 million people would be traveling over the long weekend, nearly on par with 2019 holiday travel.
Jha and other Biden officials are cautious about projecting — or downplaying — a winter surge, but simultaneously balancing that against calls for more Covid-19 funding and urging apathetic Americans to get boosted. | How health plans can facilitate data use to address social needs and social determinants of health The collection, use, and sharing of health and social data is an essential tool to address social needs and social determinants of health (SDoH). Health plans have a critical role to play in improving our collective ability to effectively leverage social needs and SDoH data. This paper explores how health plans can work collaboratively to unlock social needs and SDoH data to build a system capable of meeting individual social needs and developing thriving communities. Learn more here. | A key addiction advocacy group faces conflict-of-interest accusations The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, an influential D.C. advocacy group, is facing criticism for a perceived conflict of interest on an unlikely topic: envelopes.
The bizarre controversy stems from an FDA proposal to distribute prepaid envelopes alongside opioid prescriptions, helping Americans to dispose of unused painkillers. CADCA, however, is vocally opposed. Some advocates have a theory as to why: the organization's cozy relationship with Deterra, a company that makes take-home drug disposal kits and whose bottom line would undoubtedly suffer if the proposal moves forward.
Deterra is one of CADCA's corporate sponsors, my colleague Lev Facher reports. But the connections run deeper: In 2020, CADCA announced that Deterra had received its first-ever product endorsement. The organization's CEO, and the chair of its board, both sit on Deterra's board, too. But Barrye Price, the former U.S. Army general who serves as CADCA's CEO, says any suggestion of an ethical conflict is "bullshit." Read more here. | What we're reading - ‘Skinny labels’ on biosimilar medicines saved Medicare $1.5 billion over a recent five-year period, STAT
- The opioid epidemic is surging among Black people because of unequal access to treatment, Scientific American
- The secret to longer, healthier life? Ambitious new trial focuses on ‘super agers’ and seeks thousands of families, The Boston Globe
- Medibank hackers release 1,500 more patient records on dark web, including mental health data, The Guardian
- How hospice became a for-profit hustle, The New Yorker
| | | Thanks for reading! More on Thursday,  | |
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