STATE OF THE UNION
What we're looking for in Biden's speech
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
The president will address the nation tonight from the Capitol, and on health care, he's going to mention some of his top priorities and victory-lap moments, per a press release yesterday. As expected, Medicare insulin caps, record ACA enrollment, and states opting-in to expanded Medicaid programs are teed up for mentions.
The expected fixtures are there, even a reference to Medicare's new $35-a-month insulin price cap that ignores Democrats' failure to get a broader plan through last summer or former President Trump's earlier demo capping prices for the program. (More on why the drug pricing victory lap may be slow is right below).
Glaringly absent from the early outline is any mention of reproductive rights, which administration officials have scrambled to secure through bolstered access to the abortion pill and a clarified Plan B label. But officials have also admitted, as recently as a White House press briefing last week, that they don't see a public health emergency for abortion access being a viable path.
MEDICARE NEGOTIATION
An informative mea culpa
An insightful note from my D.C. Diagnosis coauthor, Rachel: I wanted to pop in to correct an inaccuracy from last week's DCD. I always want to be up front when mistakes happen, and I think the further information I learned will be of interest, too.
Last Thursday, I wrote that "Medicare Part B drugmakers will be notified of the amount of penalties they owe the federal government in September." And it's true that CMS officials could, according to the text of the Inflation Reduction Act, start invoicing drugmakers that hike prices faster than inflation in September.
But after we published, CMS pointed me to another provision that allows the agency to delay invoicing drugmakers for their price hikes until anytime before the end of September 2025. "The law provided CMS the authority to delay invoicing until 2025 for calendar quarters beginning in 2023 and 2024. This time is necessary to issue program instruction and build operations necessary for invoicing," a CMS spokesperson said. For Part D drugmakers, CMS has to send invoices no later than December 31, 2025.
Long story short, CMS appears to be delaying penalties for drugmakers for up to two years — a timeline that could potentially stretch implementation into a new presidential administration, depending on how the 2024 election works out.
ARound Washington
Richard Burr's next act
The North Carolina Republican who left the Senate and his top post in the health committee at the end of last year is also the latest lawmaker to join a prominent K Street firm. He'll join DLA Piper as a senior policy adviser and chair of a new health policy strategic consulting practice, my DCD co-writer Rachel Cohrs reports.
He won't be lobbying Congress right away, as former senators are banned from contacting either the Senate or House of Representatives for two years following their departure from office, according to ethics rules. The firm said Burr's group will provide strategic planning and consulting services. Burr said he would consider formally registering to lobby if it best served his clients once he joins the firm.
"I don't want to sit on the bench. I want to be in the game, even as a guy who technically should retire," Burr, a fierce advocate for biosecurity preparedness and defender of the tobacco industry, told Rachel. Read more about his priorities here.
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