| | | | |  | | By Krista Mahr and Daniel Payne | | | | | | | 
Incoming White House chief of staff Jeff Zients (seen here at a 2020 event with then-President-elect Joe Biden) earned both supporters and detractors during his stint as Covid czar. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo | HAIL TO THE NEW CHIEF — Jeff Zients is on his way back to the White House as President Joe Biden's new chief of staff, where the managerial prowess he showed as Covid czar will be put to the test, POLITICO's Adam Cancryn reports. The job: As Biden's top aide, Zients will be expected to bring the logistical and organizational expertise he showed as head of the Covid-19 response to a West Wing facing a new inflection point. As Biden prepares for a likely reelection bid, he's also under intensifying scrutiny over his handling of classified documents. Republicans in control of the House vow a series of investigations, while the administration tries to navigate an increasingly delicate set of economic dilemmas. A controversial track record: Zients has plenty of supporters who say he's a talented internal operator capable of solving the government's toughest challenges. Biden appointed Zients to run the Covid response shortly after winning the 2020 election, charging him with orchestrating a sprawling response that cut across several federal departments. His Covid team scored a string of early successes, accelerating the manufacture of vaccines and securing enough shots for every American. The widespread rollout that followed won extensive praise and appeared at the time to put the U.S. on track to stamp out the virus. But the Delta wave caught Zients and his White House team by surprise, ultimately denting the nation's confidence in the Covid response. Critics say that under Zients' leadership, the White House Covid team did too little to limit the virus' spread, prioritizing economic concerns like quickly reopening businesses ahead of taking the public health steps needed to give the U.S. a shot at eradicating the disease. They charge that Zients allowed the administration to grow overconfident and complacent at critical junctures, allowing Covid to bounce back and deepening Americans' distrust of the federal response. WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE — The deadly attack in Monterey Park, California, on Sunday was the 33rd mass shooting in the United States so far this year. But it wasn't the last: There was another mass shooting on Sunday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which puts us at 34 as of Jan. 22. Send news and tips to kmahr@politico.com and dpayne@politico.com. TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, Erin Schumaker talks with Alice Miranda Ollstein about the more-than-typical shortages and supply disruptions of common over-the-counter and prescription drugs and how they've caused headaches for sick Americans and those managing chronic diseases. Plus, Alice's dispatch from the first March For Life rally on the National Mall since the fall of Roe.
| | | | | | | A message from PhRMA: Costly out-of-pocket expenses tied to deductible and coinsurance requirements are a leading concern for patients with commercial insurance. These harmful practices put in place by insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are even causing patients to abandon their medicines. New IQVIA data break down how insurers and their PBMs are impacting how patients access and afford their medicines. | | | | | | | 
Vice President Kamala Harris takes the abortion battle to Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | HARRIS CHALLENGES DESANTIS IN FLORIDA — Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday brought the battle over abortion directly to the doorstep of potential 2024 president contender Gov. Ron DeSantis, POLITICO's Gary Fineout and Kierra Frazier report. Harris gave a midday speech in Tallahassee highlighting the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, where she not only weaved in several mentions of "freedom" — a subtle dig at DeSantis' recurring remarks about the "free state of Florida" — but said "extremists" in the statehouse had passed a "radical abortion ban" last year. The Biden administration has clashed repeatedly with DeSantis over the last two years, but Harris' appearance just a mile from the state Capitol seemed to signal a higher level of engagement with the governor, who is viewed as the top challenger to former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Harris, in her remarks, criticized the DeSantis administration after Florida health regulators told health care providers they could risk criminal charges if they distributed abortion pills. That warning — which went to pharmacies — was distributed after the FDA dropped long-standing restrictions that banned the abortion pill from being sold at retail pharmacies. TRUMP WARNS GOP AGAINST CUTTING MEDICARE — Former President Donald Trump issued a warning by video to Republican lawmakers on Friday: Don't lay a finger on entitlement programs as part of the debt ceiling showdown with the White House, POLITICO's Meridith McGraw reports. The two-minute video is part of a series of policy announcements put out by his campaign, coming amid growing brinkmanship between congressional Republicans and the White House over raising the nation's debt limit. Trump's position echoes his long-held, albeit unorthodox, conviction that the Republican Party should stay away from attaching themselves to entitlement reform. As a presidential candidate, he insisted he would preserve both Medicare and Social Security. Cutting either was never seriously discussed during his time in office, though he had obliquely hinted he might consider it in a second term.
| | | | JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA'S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | PUSHBACK ON PERMANENT COVID-19 PROTECTIONS — Lobbyists are pushing back on the Biden administration's plans to finalize Covid-19 protections for workers in health care settings, arguing it would be unnecessary and burdensome in a still uncertain time, Megan R. Wilson reports. Lobbyists representing hospitals, nursing homes, retail pharmacies and construction companies are joining the fight that could spark a legal battle with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which aims to make permanent the emergency safety standards for health workplaces enacted in 2021. The temporary rule, which OSHA stopped enforcing last year, included requirements surrounding ventilation, protective equipment and Covid testing and vaccination mandates, among other things. In finalizing it, the agency is considering whether to broaden the requirements to include sectors such as construction workers inside a hospital. The rule will reportedly not, however, include a vaccine mandate. VENABLE PARTS WAYS WITH ADHD STARTUP — Former Rep. Bart Stupak and the lobbying firm Venablehave parted ways with the ADHD telehealth startup Done, our colleagues at Politico Influence report. The startup is one of several that have come under fire after experiencing massive growth during the pandemic, touting swift access to mental health services while taking advantage of relaxed rules governing online prescriptions for controlled substances like the ADHD medication Adderall. Stupak, who in Congress sponsored the legislation that effectively banned such prescribing practices, began lobbying for Done at the beginning of 2022. Disclosures show Stupak lobbied both chambers of Congress as well as DOJ and DEA, for which Venable was paid $180,000. Last month in a Bloomberg report, Stupak complained that the DEA has dragged its feet on developing guidelines for online prescribing mandated by the 2008 law. Telemedicine in general exploded in popularity during the pandemic, and one of the industry's top legislative priorities in Washington, D.C., has been making Covid telehealth flexibilities permanent. The omnibus spending bill last year extended those flexibilities for another two years, which Stupak told PI is the reason he no longer lobbies for Done — even as advocates have warned that delays at DEA could result in a gap in coverage for virtual prescribing of controlled substances once the Biden administration ends the Covid public health emergency as expected this spring.
| | | | A message from PhRMA:   | | | | | | DOJ INVESTIGATES ABBOTT — Abbott, the company at the center of lingering infant formula shortages in the U.S., is now under a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill reports. A handful of congressional Democrats have encouraged federal probes into Abbott's handling of the contamination of formula products, which ultimately triggered a major recall and shut down a key plant located in Sturgis, Michigan, last February. A whistleblower alleged Abbott employees falsified documents and covered up food-safety violations from FDA inspectors before the recall. The DOJ investigation, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes just a few weeks after Abbott and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced the company's plans to build a new $536 million manufacturing facility in the state to produce specialty and metabolic formulas for medically vulnerable children and adults hit hardest by the shortages. Abbott has struggled to ramp up production of the special formulas at its Sturgis plant and recently pushed back the availability of a slate of metabolic formulas to April.
| | | ABORTION OPPONENTS AND THE GOP — Anti-abortion groups are butting heads with Republican lawmakers as state legislative sessions get underway, POLITICO's Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein report. They fear GOP-controlled legislatures, many of which are convening for the first time since Roe v. Wade was overturned, will water down their near-total abortion bans that took effect last year and stir up politically contentious debates over already-vetted laws. The disagreements threaten to further fragment the anti-abortion movement, which was unified for nearly 50 years over the goal of toppling Roe. And they portend further infighting in states where the biggest threat most GOP lawmakers face is a primary from the right.
| | | | JOIN TUESDAY TO HEAR FROM MAYORS AROUND AMERICA: 2022 brought in a new class of mayors leading "majority minority" cities, reshaping who is at the nation's power tables and what their priorities are. Join POLITICO to hear from local leaders on how they're responding to being tested by unequal Covid-19 outcomes, upticks in hate crimes, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, inflation and a potential recession. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | Angela Ramponi is now legislative director for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Ramponi has managed Murkowski's healthcare portfolio for the past four years.
| | | This essay in The Wall Street Journal ponders why the 1918 flu doesn't live larger in our collective memory. As pandemic-era benefits end, the number of students receiving school lunches in the U.S. has reduced by at least a third, The New York Times reports. The Los Angeles Times offers this fascinating glimpse into what happens to the thousands of cars that get waterlogged during a massive flood. And in case you missed it, our colleagues over at West Wing Playbook report on the State Department's move to Calibri, a sans serif font, to make it easier for people who use screen readers.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: Every day, patients at the pharmacy counter discover their commercial insurance coverage does not provide the level of access and affordability they need. New data from a study by IQVIA reveal the harmful practices of insurers and their pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) can lead to significantly higher out-of-pocket costs for medicines — causing some patients to abandon their medicines completely. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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