The Biden administration and all those empty shelves

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May 16, 2022 View in browser   By Krista Mahr and Sarah Owermohle Presented by With help from Daniel Lippman  Editor's Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories.  Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. QUICK FIX — The Biden Administration is scrambling to respond to the infant formula shortage, with father of two Pete Buttigieg defending its approach. — Raising the Covid-19 vaccination rate in countries like Ghana is hard when people no longer want the shot. — New York's drug overdose prevention sites could become a national model if the Biden Administration clears the way for other states to set them up. WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE — There may have been at least $163 billion in pandemic aid fraud in unemployment payments alone, about $4 billion of which has been recovered. Send your best fraud tips and news to kmahr@politico.com and sowermohle@politico.com.   A message from PhRMA: New data show that 35% of insured Americans spent more on out-of-pocket costs than they could afford in the past month. Read more about how insurance is leaving patients exposed to deepening inequities.   Driving the Day Pete Buttigieg defended the Biden administration's handling of the formula shortage on Sunday. | Alberto Pezzali/AP Photo, File THE FORMULA SHORTAGE COMES TO WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary and new dad Pete Buttigieg appeared on Sunday to defend the Biden administration's moves to address the national infant formula supply shortage, part of an increasingly vocal response from officials as parents (and voters) continue to search empty retailers' shelves. "This is very personal for us. We've got two 9-month-old children. Baby formula's a very big part of our lives," Buttigieg told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, POLITICO's Connor O'Brien reports. "If you're a shift worker with two jobs, maybe you don't have a car, you literally don't have the time or the money to be going from store to store," he said. "That's why this is such a serious issue, and that's why it's getting attention at the highest levels." Last week, the White House stepped in to help ramp up infant formula production after a shortage had been building for months. In February, Abbott Nutrition's plant in Michigan, which made a significant portion of the nation's formula supply, shut down after the Food and Drug Administration found four children who consumed formula from the factory were hospitalized with a rare bacterial infection. In a letter to congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the shortage was "unconscionable and tragic," while other Democrats are crying foul over the heavily consolidated industry, POLITICO's Helena Bottemiller Evich and Meredith Lee report. On Friday, they wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, calling for the USDA to make the sector more competitive. Republicans haven't missed the opportunity to pin the mess on President Joe Biden, tying it to the broader conversation about inflation that's hitting many Americans hard. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER? — In Africa, vaccination workers struggle to get people to take the Covid-19 vaccine, a plight exacerbating stubbornly low vaccination rates that health officials worry pose a serious threat to people and the health care system, POLITICO's Erin Banco reports from Ghana. People In some parts of the country were clamoring for the vaccine a year ago when infection rates were higher. But in the time it took for the vaccine to finally arrive, those rates dropped and vaccine misinformation and distrust of Western aid took hold, leaving many reluctant. What's happening in Ghana is emblematic of a broader challenge across Africa, which has the lowest vaccination rates of any region in the world. Ghana is one of 11 African countries receiving millions of dollars from the United States Agency for International Development to help countries improve those numbers. It's slowly paying off, health officials say. But now, that funding is dwindling after Congress failed to approve $5 billion in additional global Covid funds last month. At the Biden administration's second global Covid summit on Thursday, U.S. and international officials announced $3.1 billion in new funding for worldwide Covid efforts. About $2 billion will go to helping fund various Covid programs, including getting shots into arms in low-income countries. The rest of the money will go toward a new World Bank pandemic preparedness fund. But without sustained funding during 2022, Ghana's vaccination rates could stall — leaving millions of people vulnerable.   DON'T MISS DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.     Advocates say overdose prevention centers in New York have saved hundreds of lives. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo NYC OVERDOSE PREVENTION CENTERS COULD BE A MODEL —  The Department of Justice is poised to drop its opposition to a Trump-era case challenging a Philadelphia overdose prevention center, clearing the way for similar centers to open across the country, POLITICO's Shannon Young reports. At least 10 states have considered opening places where people can use illegal drugs under the supervision of health workers trained in preventing overdoses, but all have run into federal hurdles. In New York City, two overdose prevention centers — also known as safe consumption sites — have successfully prevented nearly 300 overdose deaths. They're illegal under federal law, but New York police have agreed not to enforce the law at the sites. Critics of the programs say they encourage drug use and are among several social services, like methadone clinics, that are overly concentrated in low-income communities of color. The DOJ's potential move comes as the U.S. hit a new record in overdose deaths last year, with more than 107,000 dying from overdoses.   A message from PhRMA:   Coronavirus A NEW COVID-INDUCED BREAK IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN — The shutdown of a GE Healthcare manufacturing plant in Shanghai because of a Covid-19 lockdown has forced some health care providers to ration care, writes POLITICO's David Lim. Hospitals are grappling with a shortage of intravenous contrast media products used to perform detailed imaging tests like CT scans and X-rays, leaving doctors to decide which patients need the procedures most urgently. GE Healthcare's Omnipaque and Visipaque contrast media products were added to the FDA's drug shortage list on May 9. FDA spokesperson Audra Harrison said the agency is working with manufacturers and distributors to try to minimize the impact on patients. Meanwhile, GE is trying to return more workers to its Shanghai factory and expects its production to return to a 50 percent output level soon, according to a company spokesperson. IN THE STATES NEWSOM'S HEALTH BUDGET PRIORITIES — Health features prominently in California governor Gavin Newsom's newly proposed budget, members of POLITICO's California team report. It includes a plan to send up to $1,500 checks to some 600,000 employees in the health sector. Those workers would receive a minimum of $1,000 from the state. The administration would also send them an additional $500 if their employer matched it. That would raise the total received by a nurse, a doctor or support staff to $2,000. It calls for an additional $57 million to prepare for an influx of patients from states rolling back abortion access on top of $68 million he called for in January. And nearly $65 million in the proposal would create a new civil court system to help people with severe mental health conditions such as schizophrenia access treatment, housing and other support in an effort to avoid being institutionalized or jailed. ABORTION LEGISLATION DOMINATES STATEHOUSES — Two weeks after POLITICO published a leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, lawmakers in blue and red states are scrambling to shore up access to abortion or further restrict abortion access, POLITICO's Marissa Martinez writes in the latest Pro Statehouse Trends. In Louisiana, lawmakers debated one high-profile House bill that would allow pregnant patients to be charged with homicide. The bill was amended to remove that penalty and looks unlikely to proceed. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a law to increase penalties for providers who violate the policy requiring abortion medication to be dispensed either by doctors or in person. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy renewed efforts to further expand abortion access in the state, proposing insurance mandates to eliminate out-of-pocket costs and a state law codifying who can perform the procedure. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her state is setting aside $35 million to support abortion providers and bolster security at reproductive health centers. NEW JERSEY MULLS PENALIZING DOCTORS PEDDLING MISINFO — The Medical Society of New Jersey wants the state to penalize doctors who take part in "dangerous" Covid-19 misinformation, reports POLITICO's Daniel Han. In a letter earlier this month to the state Board of Medical Examiners, the medical society asked the board to "reprimand, suspend, revoke or otherwise discipline" New Jersey-based doctors who spread harmful Covid-19 misinformation. Under New Jersey statute, the board has broad authority to take disciplinary actions, said a society spokesperson. Boards across the country have sanctioned a small number of doctors for spreading misinformation related to Covid-19 and have looked into penalizing them.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     What We're Reading South Korea is putting cameras in surgery rooms after doctors have handed over procedures to unauthorized assistants, The New York Times reports. Russia is systematically attacking Ukraine's health care system, says former deputy health minister Pavlo Kovtoniuk in a New York Times' video essay. Could Dr. Oz's political ambitions have a silver lining for public health? asks Stat News' Lev Facher.   A message from PhRMA: According to data just released, insurance isn't working for too many patients. Despite paying premiums each month, Americans continue to face insurmountable affordability and access issues: Roughly half (49%) of insured patients who take prescription medicines report facing insurance barriers like prior authorization and "fail first" when trying to access their medicines. More than a third (35%) of insured Americans report spending more in out-of-pocket costs in the last 30 days than they could afford. Americans need better coverage that puts patients first. Read more in PhRMA's latest Patient Experience Survey.     Follow us on Twitter Tucker Doherty @tucker_doherty Dan Goldberg @dancgoldberg Erin Banco @ErinBanco Katherine Ellen Foley @katherineefoley Lauren Gardner @Gardner_LM Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Rachael Levy @rachael_levy David Lim @davidalim Krista Mahr @kristamahr Megan Messerly @meganmesserly Alice Miranda Ollstein @aliceollstein Sarah Owermohle @owermohle Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Megan R. Wilson @misswilson   Follow us

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