drug pricing
Hard bargain or hardly a bargain?
The deadline for Medicare to announce negotiated prices on the first round of drugs is fast approaching. If you're wondering how to tell whether the Biden administration drove a hard bargain, my colleague John Wilkerson has some tips.
Judging the negotiated prices is not straight forward, but there are at least four ways to get at it. Do they save taxpayers money? Do they save seniors' money? Are they appropriately priced for the value they provide? Are we still paying more than other countries?
The international price comparison might be the easiest approach, and the most tempting. But don't hold your breath for lower prices here than abroad, according to KFF Executive Vice President for Health Policy Larry Levitt.
"That's an important political goal," Levitt said. "But the drug pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act ended up being much more modest than advocates had hoped."
More from John.
hospital regs
Fixing site neutral's rural hospital problem
Based on casual hallway interviews with lawmakers, one of the hospital industry's most persuasive arguments against equalizing payments in Medicare regardless of where a service is provided is that the policy could hurt rural hospitals, my co-author Rachel Cohrs Zhang reports.
Rachel discussed this topic, known as site-neutral policy, with health policy experts from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, Paragon Health Institute, and the Center for American Progress, including how to ensure that rural hospitals wouldn't be harmed if the policy is implemented. Ben Ippolito from the American Enterprise Institute said that rural hospitals do face financial challenges, but to overpay all hospitals in America to fix the issue is "so backwards that it's like we've completely lost the point."
The policy could save money by reducing payments for some services like x-rays and office visits in hospital outpatient departments, and the most aggressive form of the policy could save Medicare more than $100 billion. Ippolito suggested using some of the savings to just give money to rural hospitals. He also said that it's also unlikely that rural hospitals are the big drivers of purchasing physician practices.
Loren Adler of the Brookings Institution suggested using the savings to provide slightly higher Medicare payments for rural hospitals, or providing a financial incentive for doctors to practice in rural areas.
FOod fights
White House prepares for a 'healthy' dose of lobbying
The regulatory wonks over at the White House Office of Management and Budget are about to get very familiar with the food industry's feelings on what is, and isn't "healthy," my colleague Nick Florko reports. The White House regulatory office has officially begun scheduling meetings about the FDA's attempt to redefine that term.
There's no telling yet what the FDA's regulation on labeling food as "healthy" says. The agency submitted the rule to the White House earlier this month. OMB must now review the regulation and meet with stakeholders before it is ultimately released. A draft of the regulation, which was released in 2022, proposed that foods could be labeled healthy if they contained a certain amount of healthy food groups, like vegetables and fruits, and were limited in harmful nutrients like sodium and added sugar. The regulation was criticized by food manufacturers as overly restrictive.
The change to FDA's definition of healthy could have major financial implications for food manufacturers – especially those who literally have the word "healthy" in their names. So, the White House is likely to schedule dozens, if not hundreds, of meetings with food makers in the coming weeks. But, interestingly enough, the first groups to get the White House's ear aren't the frozen food lobby, or the folks behind Healthy Choice – it's tea companies who have been trying to get tea called out as healthy within the FDA's regulation. Lipton Tea met with the White House last week, according to public records, and the Tea Council of the U.S.A. is slated to meet with officials on Friday.
Got good goss on tea makers lobbying in Washington? Spill the tea to Nick at nicholas.florko@statnews.com.
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