10 health care people to watch in a Harris administration

If Vice President Harris wins the presidency, her tenure could usher in a new era of emphasis on women's health and reproductive rights, which have been defining health care issues during her political career so far.

The people who could shape her health care priorities include a former Capitol Hill aide, White House staff, bureaucrats already serving in the Biden administration, a business leader, lawmakers, and longtime allies. Her team will be particularly important in building out her vision especially because Harris' campaign has had such a short runway to lay out her policy priorities.

STAT singled out the 10 health policy leaders to know as Harris enters the final stretch of campaign season — get the full list.

business

Mark Cuban pushes anti-PBM agenda

Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban is pushing an anti-PBM agenda with Vice President Harris' campaign, and it seems like he's getting somewhere.

The minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks and "Shark Tank" star is using his platform to argue for far greater transparency into pharmacy benefit managers. He's already targeted the middlemen through his Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs endeavor. Sure enough, the Harris campaign called for reforms to the PBM industry as part of a larger health care plan rollout earlier this week.

Read more of his comments on what policies he's pushing for, and whether he wants to be HHS secretary.

policy

Harris' health care push

As the November election enters its final stretch, Harris made a late push this week to announce new health care policies. She'd expand the Medicare program to cover home care and hearing and vision benefits — and is proposing to reduce what Medicare pays for prescription drugs to pay for it.

A two-part rollout of the policies led to more attention on the potential expansion of home care coverage, but expanding Medicare to cover hearing aids and glasses for seniors has also been a longtime priority for progressives.

A reality check: Democrats tried to do all of these things when they were negotiating the Inflation Reduction Act, but they couldn't finish the job. If they win anything less than trifecta control, these policies will be a long shot in Congress.

weight-loss drugs

Drugmakers could already reach half the Medicare obesity market for GLP-1s

A CBO report this week received a lot of attention for estimating that it would cost Medicare an additional $35 billion over nine years to cover GLP-1s for obesity. But that report included another interesting nugget: half of seniors who would qualify for obesity coverage already have access to the drugs for other conditions, my colleague John Wilkerson writes.

Medicare is prohibited by law from covering weight-loss drugs, including Wegovy and Zepbound. The active ingredients of those drugs also are approved for other conditions, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, that Medicare does cover.

Drugs for those conditions already exist, and they're often generic. But a lot of people are switching to GLP-1s. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 29 million beneficiaries would qualify for weight-loss drugs in 2026.

"About half of that group, or 16 million people, would have access to those medications under current law for indications such as diabetes, cardiovascular coverage, and other indications approved by the FDA in the interim," the report states.

court watch

CVS, UnitedHealth, and Cigna trade barbs with Lina Khan

Some of the nation's largest health insurance conglomerates are working to pick apart the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit challenging the PBM industry, STAT's Bob Herman reports.

Attorneys for the companies argued that FTC Chair Lina Khan and two Democratic commissioners should be sidelined from the agency's lawsuit against pharmacy benefit managers due to bias. The Republican commissioners are already recused, so if the remaining commissioners were pulled off, there would in theory be no commissioners left to bring the lawsuit.

The motion comes just a month before a presidential election that could leave Khan's future uncertain. This development adds dimension to the already complicated web of litigation, as Cigna's Express Scripts had already sued the agency over its report on the PBM industry. Read more about the tangled mess.

influence

Another friend for PhRMA

While Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) took the spotlight as being the first House Democrat to sign on to a pharmaceutical industry-supported proposal to water down the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare negotiation program, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) has emerged as a more low-profile ally.

Gottheimer last month quietly co-sponsored legislation that would lengthen the amount of time that small-molecule drugs get protection from Medicare negotiation to bring it to the same level that biologics receive.

Gottheimer voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, and released a statement of support at the time. "This legislation is a huge win for New Jersey — it will lower prescription drug prices, especially for seniors," Gottheimer said.

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What we're reading

Q&A: How the FDA is approaching AI in clinical trials and drug development, STAT
Employers haven't a clue how their drug benefits are managed, KFF Health News
U.S. Supreme Court asks solicitor general for views on controversial Oklahoma law for regulating PBMs, STAT
Healthcare premiums are soaring even as inflation eases, in charts, Wall Street Journal