Biden’s health care inflation problem

Delivered daily by 10 a.m., Pulse examines the latest news in health care politics and policy.

Oct 12, 2022 View in browser   By Krista Mahr and Daniel Payne With help from Lauren Gardner and Carmen Paun  Driving the Day By some estimates, health care inflation could nearly double between mid-2022 and mid-2023. | Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images HEALTH CARE INFLATION ON THE HORIZON — Rising health care costs are poised to become the next big battle in President Joe Biden's war against inflation, POLITICO's Sam Sutton reports. Economists, business leaders and health care industry experts warn that the wage, revenue and supply-chain pressures that hammered the margins of hospitals and clinics during the pandemic are about to send health coverage and out-of-pocket medical bills through the roof. White House officials are bracing for health care–related inflation to get worse. But they're taking the view that the pain won't last long, banking on the cost-cutting measures in the sweeping health care and climate law Biden signed into law in August. How bad could this get? The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated last month that the rate of health care inflation will almost double between mid-2022 and mid-2023 as insurance starts to factor in surging labor costs for hospitals and health networks. Once inflation hits employer-sponsored insurance plans, workers whose wages struggled to keep pace with rising prices might be forced into decisions about how they access care. Government institutions whose budgets are already laden with expensive health benefit plans for public employees and retirees might be forced to cut costs or approve rate hikes that would enrage organized labor. Why it matters: A dramatic spike in the cost of health insurance would represent a major challenge to Biden's post-midterm agenda as he navigates a fractured political environment and deep economic challenges that show no signs of abating. The Dallas Fed is projecting insurance plans, and consumers will pay more for medical care through at least the end of 2024 — when Biden has signaled he'll seek reelection — potentially adding another complication to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's ongoing battle to bring inflation to heel. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE — Hold the phone! There's a new, official magic number for how many steps you should take each day to prevent obesity, diabetes and a host of other health problems. And it isn't 10,000. Do you still count steps or did you throw your Fitbit out the window in 2016? Send your thoughts, news and tips to kmahr@politco.com and dpayne@politico.com. TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, Alice Miranda Ollstein shares with Krista a dispatch from her reporting in Pennsylvania and Michigan about doctors taking to the campaign trail ahead of the midterms. Plus, Dr. Katie McHugh on moving her abortion practice to other states.   TUNE IN TO THE PULSE CHECK PODCAST: Keep your finger on the pulse of the biggest stories in health care by listening to our daily Pulse Check podcast. POLITICO's must-listen briefing decodes healthcare policy and politics, and delivers reality checks from health professionals on the front lines. SUBSCRIBE NOW AND START LISTENING.     Listen to today's Pulse Check podcast Midterms Watch A new KFF survey indicates abortion is still motivating voters ahead of the midterms. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images ABORTION STILL HAS VOTERS' ATTENTION — Abortion still proves to be a major motivator for voters a month out from the midterms, according to a new survey published today by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Overall, the survey found about half of voters are more driven to vote in these elections than in previous ones, with abortion high on the list of motivating factors. A few of the survey's key findings: — Fifty percent of voters say the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade has made them more motivated to vote in this year's elections, up from 43 percent in July just after the court's decision. About two-thirds of Democrats and nearly half of Independents cite the court's decision as a motivator, as do more than a third of Republicans. — Four in 10 voters say their state's abortion laws have made them more motivated to vote, with an increase to 51 percent among voters living in states that have introduced full abortion bans. — Eight in 10 voters across parties oppose abortion bans in cases of rape or incest, laws making it a crime for an individual to get an abortion resulting in prison or fines, and laws allowing private citizens to sue people who assist in abortions. … THEY ALSO LIKE BIDEN'S MARIJUANA PARDON — Nearly two-thirds of voters approve of Biden's move last week to pardon people with federal marijuana possession offenses, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Morning Consult. Nearly two-thirds of voters indicated they support issuing pardons to people with nonviolent federal marijuana convictions. A slightly higher share of respondents — 69 percent — expressed support for potentially changing marijuana's classification under federal law. Fewer than one in five respondents indicated opposition to reevaluating marijuana's federal status. Public Health A BLEAK FEW YEARS FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN — A report released today by the United Health Foundation underscores the severity of how the complicated mental health crisis impacts women and children in America. America's Health Rankings' 2022 Health of Women and Children Report found that mental health challenges widened among women and children during the pandemic and exacerbated long-standing disparities in mental health care that disproportionately impact Black and American Indian/Alaska Native women. Among the key findings: — Fourteen percent more women ages 18–44 reported experiencing frequent mental distress between 2017–2018 and 2020–2021. — Depression increased 27 percent among children ages 3–17 between 2017–2018 and 2020–2021. — The teen suicide rate increased 29 percent at the national level between 2012–2014 and 2018–2020 in 15- to 19-year-olds. — Firearm deaths are up 9 percent for women (20–44) and 18 percent for children (1–19) between 2017–2018 and 2020–2021. HOW JAPAN COULD HELP FIGHT MONKEYPOX — Top Biden White House and health officials are looking to Japan to potentially make its smallpox vaccine available to countries with monkeypox outbreaks, POLITICO's Erin Banco reports. While U.S. monkeypox cases have declined, Mexico, Peru and Chile are among the nations still struggling to contain outbreaks. Last week, the Pan American Health Organization called for increased surveillance to help stop the spread, and officials at the WHO have urged greater global coordination to help curb monkeypox in countries that don't have access to vaccines and treatments. The Biden administration wants to help, but the U.S. has limited vaccine supply left. The idea of working with Japan to get doses out came up in a call in September with members of the White House monkeypox task force and a group of outside, informal public health advisers on the U.S. international response to monkeypox, according to a person familiar with the matter. DOCTORS URGE PATIENT FOCUS IN 'SUPERBUG' BILL — Physicians are lobbying lawmakers to push through legislation that would overhaul the market for novel antimicrobial drugs. The objective is to make improving patient outcomes the chief priority for any new incentives created by Congress, Lauren reports. Doctors like Yale School of Medicine's Reshma Ramachandran and former FDA official John Powers argue that the bill, known as the PASTEUR Act, doesn't focus primarily on identifying and promoting new treatments that could be effective in treating patients with antimicrobial-resistant bugs. Previous efforts by Congress to address the antibiotics market "got more drugs, and none of them improved patient outcomes," said Powers, now a professor of clinical medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine, who argues that's because the drugs aren't studied in the people who actually need them. Updated version: Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), two of PASTEUR's lead sponsors, have offered an updated version as an amendment to the fiscal 2023 defense authorization bill "based on feedback we received to ensure that the contracts are awarded to treatments that improve patient outcomes," a Bennet spokesperson said. The amendment also comes with a $6 billion price tag, down from $11 billion in the original version. Coronavirus U.S. NAMES PANDEMIC ACCORD NEGOTIATOR — In a sign of the importance Washington, D.C., gives the global pandemic agreement being negotiated at the World Health Organization, the Biden administration said on Tuesday it will appoint former U.N. ambassador Pamela Hamamoto to represent the U.S. in the talks, Carmen reports. A former U.S. Permanent Representative to the Office of the United Nations and other Geneva-based international organizations during the second Obama administration, Hamamoto will manage U.S. engagement in the negotiations launched last year to come up with an agreement implementing the lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic. The WHO and European Union countries have pushed for a legally binding agreement, or treaty, but the U.S. has been lukewarm to the idea since two-thirds of the Senate would have to ratify it. At the White House FAMILY GLITCH NO MORE — The Biden administration released the final rule to fix the Affordable Care Act's so-called family glitch , which will offer health insurance subsidies to an additional 1 million people, Daniel reports. The long-sought change will close a loophole that kept families from qualifying for subsidized health insurance when one member received coverage from their employer that was considered affordable — even if the cost of covering the entire family was unaffordable. The move, from the IRS and Treasury Department, has been planned by the White House since April when it touted the policy as "the most significant administrative action to improve" the ACA since it was passed in 2010.   STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Our Future Pulse newsletter will continue to bring you the biggest stories at the intersection of technology and healthcare, but now five times a week. Want to know what's next in health care? Sign up for our Future Pulse newsletter. If you aren't already subscribed, follow this link to start receiving Future Pulse.     What We're Reading STAT reports on a new report by the March of Dimes that finds "deserts" of maternity care are on the rise across the country … … While at the same time, more hospitals are closing children's units because adults are more lucrative to treat, according to this New York Times story. Insider reports how a highly valued autism care start-up left families and kids hanging when it couldn't deliver on the care it promised.   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_ David Lim @davidalim Krista Mahr @kristamahr Megan Messerly @meganmesserly Alice Miranda Ollstein @aliceollstein Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Megan R. Wilson @misswilson Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.