The GOP’s high-tech health care plans

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Nov 07, 2022 View in browser   By Ben Leonard , Carmen Paun , Ruth Reader and Grace Scullion WASHINGTON WATCH Early voting began in New York City on Oct. 29. | Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo Republican victories in Tuesday's elections could benefit patients, businesses and health care providers who've liked pandemic-era rules that have made telehealth easier to use. Although telehealth is broadly bipartisan, Republicans are more fervent in their telehealth enthusiasm than their Democratic counterparts, Ben reports. In July, the House passed legislation by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to extend through 2024 rules that allowed Medicare to pay for more virtual doctor visits. The rules currently expire five months after the end of the federal public health emergency. That could come as early as June, but Congress could wrap up an extension of the Medicare rules during the lame-duck session that starts next week. Medicare patients aren't the only ones who could benefit. Pandemic policies that allowed insurers to pick up the cost of telehealth visits for the more than 30 million people on high-deductible health plans expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress extends them. Here are some other GOP priorities:  Cybersecurity: The GOP is signaling that it will focus on legislation to stop hackers who've besieged U.S. health care organizations. Republicans introduced several cybersecurity bills just ahead of the elections, including one from House Energy and Commerce ranking member Brett Guthrie of Kentucky aimed at bolstering the Department of Health and Human Services' defenses. The goal is bipartisan. This month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) released a cybersecurity report calling for stronger leadership from HHS. AI/Innovation: House Republicans' Healthy Future Task Force has targeted expanding Medicare breakthrough-device coverage as a priority, as well as modernizing clinical trials and using artificial intelligence to root out fraud. Tech oversight: Republicans have pushed tech companies, including Snapchat and TikTok, to take more action to prevent fentanyl sales on their platforms.   DON'T MISS A THING FROM THE MILKEN INSTITUTE'S MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA SUMMIT: POLITICO is partnering with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Digital Future Daily" newsletter with insider reporting and insights from the Milken Institute's Middle East and Africa Summit happening November 17-18. Hundreds of global leaders will convene, highlighting the important role connection plays in advancing global well-being. Whether you're in-person at the event or following online, sign up for this special edition newsletter for daily coverage of the event. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Bear Neck Creek, Md. | Shawn Zeller This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. The lithium ion batteries in electric scooters and bikes have caused close to 200 fires in New York City this year, according to the city's fire department. Over the weekend, a malfunctioning scooter battery sparked a conflagration in a Manhattan high rise that injured 43 people, according to a report in Vice. Share news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Grace Scullion at gscullion@politico.com.  Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, Megan Messerly talks with Katherine Ellen Foley about the state elections that will affect abortion access. Also, Alice Miranda Ollstein provides a dispatch from Kentucky on a ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to say it provides no right to an abortion. Listen to today's Pulse Check podcast WORLD VIEW 36 The number of people worldwide who have died from monkeypox this year as of Oct. 31, according to the World Health Organization While the U.S. and Europe contained the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. and Europe this year, Africa, where the disease has long been endemic, didn't benefit from their success, Carmen reports. The WHO reports that even as Africa still accounts for only about 1 percent of global cases, it has reported nearly 40 percent of the deaths. The continent doesn't have access to the vaccines and treatments used in richer countries, despite the WHO's call for help. A new study of cases from 2013 to 2017 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Kinshasa School of Public Health and the DRC's Ministry of Public Health underscored how the country has struggled to get a handle on the disease. The researchers found evidence of regular spillovers of monkeypox infections from rodents to people, typically children, which then spread to people living in the same household. "This research puts the global health community on alert that there may be the opportunity for larger outbreaks in DRC on the horizon," Kelly Charniga, a prevention effectiveness fellow at the CDC and one of the study authors, said in a statement.   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 .     FORWARD THINKING A new study shows how artificial intelligence could help pick up on novel disease outbreaks before public health officials are aware of them. The technology is called MUSES, or multidimensional semantic scan. It seeks out patients with similar symptom profiles within health records, regardless of diagnosis, to find potential outbreaks. "The idea is that by using that textual data, one can actually detect disease outbreaks and other emerging events of public health interest without already knowing what you're looking for," Daniel B. Neill, an associate professor of computer science and public service at New York University, who led the study, told Ruth. Current surveillance uses keywords to find outbreaks, Neill said, which can miss cases inadequately defined in health records. How the study worked: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene gave Neill and his colleagues access to historical emergency room data from 53 hospitals to run two case studies. The first case study ran the algorithm against 28 million records dated between 2010 and 2016 to see whether the technology could identify meaningful clusters of health events without human assistance. Of the top 500 results, 64 percent were related to meaningful health events. By comparison, 49 percent of the results from a keyword-based search proved relevant. The researchers also ran emergency department records for the first three months of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York, starting in March 2020, through the software and were able to differentiate symptom clusters related to the disease. Experts agree that the U.S. needs better disease surveillance to prepare for the next pandemic. Last August, the CDC announced the creation of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics in an effort to build out such tools. In an email sent to staff earlier this year, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said state and local governments needed to upgrade their public health tools, too.   Follow us on Twitter Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Ruth Reader @RuthReader Carmen Paun @carmenpaun   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.