| | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard and Chelsea Cirruzzo | Presented by the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care | With Carmen Paun
| | |  Rep. Greg Murphy is working to quickly mitigate the Medicare rate cut that took effect this month. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images | WAITING ROOM — Doctors and Congress are used to the annual ritual by now. Each year, a cut in Medicare pay is announced, doctors’ groups plead with lawmakers to stop it and extra money is included in a year-end package. But this year was different, POLITICO’s Daniel Payne and Robert King report. Congress never included a pay bump to make up for the planned cuts — and now doctors have worked for less money from Medicare for nearly a month. It’s left doctors fuming, saying patient access is on the line — as is the sustainability of practices nationwide. “Medical practices are feeling like it is death by a thousand cuts,” said Anders Gilberg, senior vice president of government affairs for the Medical Group Management Association. It isn’t for lack of trying. Physicians groups have worked since last fall to get a pay fix into must-pass legislation, though many were already eyeing concessions they believed were inevitable. There was hope that some change to the 3.4 percent cut would be included in the Jan. 18 spending package, with leadership in both parties interested, according to Republican and Democratic staffers familiar with the discussions and granted anonymity to discuss private negotiations — but it fell through. Republicans were willing to include doctor pay but not other priorities Democrats insisted on: community health centers, Medicaid and mental health funding. That means doctors are probably looking at another month of lower pay. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a doctor himself and among the biggest proponents for a fix, told POLITICO that he’s considering ways to get a fix through sooner — but acknowledged the most likely scenario is to include it in the next government funding package in March. “That’s when, processwise, I think that could happen,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), also a doctor and the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The panel is working with the Finance Committee on a health care bill that could be a vehicle. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. The DEA is holding a Rocket League esports tournament this weekend as part of its “One Pill Can Kill” initiative. Reach us at bleonard@politico.com or ccirruzzo@politico.com. Follow along @_BenLeonard_ and @ChelseaCirruzzo.
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How Fast Can We Solve Alzheimer’s?
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, starting at 5:30 p.m. ET, join POLITICO for our health care event, How Fast Can We Solve Alzheimer’s?, where lawmakers, officials and experts will discuss the breakthrough drugs and treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s and ALS — and the path forward for better collaboration among health systems and industry.
| | | | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care: Hospitals Provide Care 24/7. Protect The Patients Who Depend On Them. https://actnow.protecthealthcare.org/a/no-cuts-to-care | | | | | | | 
HHS released new voluntary cybersecurity performance goals for health care facilities to tighten security amid a rise in attacks. | Rob Engelaar/AFP via Getty Images | REAX TO HHS’ NEW CYBER GOAL — Hospitals support ways to increase their cybersecurity amid an uptick of attacks — but don’t want to be hit with mandates, Chelsea reports. HHS unveiled on Wednesday a set of voluntary cybersecurity performance goals that could hint at what federal officials might eventually require of the health care sector. It comes after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said last month it would propose cyber mandates for hospitals. It’s unclear when that would happen. The goals are divided into two groups: essential goals to help facilities increase basic cybersecurity and enhanced goals to help protect against more sophisticated attacks. The American Hospital Association, which has bristled at mandatory cyber requirements, citing concerns about burden, said it supports the voluntary goals and recommends that all parts of the health care sector take up the practices. “The AHA will continue to work collaboratively with HHS and other federal partners to enhance cybersecurity efforts for the entire healthcare field, including hospitals and health systems, technology providers, and other vendors, to ensure we are protected against the primary source of cyber risk — criminal and nation state-supported cyber adversaries,” the group said in a statement. The Health Sector Coordinating Council’s cybersecurity working group also said it supports the goals, but the industry group added that government officials should assist “those under-resourced health systems that accept their cybersecurity responsibility for protecting patient safety as a national imperative but are financially and operationally constrained.”
| | | | JOIN 1/31 FOR A TALK ON THE RACE TO SOLVE ALZHEIMER’S: Breakthrough drugs and treatments are giving new hope for slowing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and ALS. But if that progress slows, the societal and economic cost to the U.S. could be high. Join POLITICO, alongside lawmakers, official and experts, on Jan. 31 to discuss a path forward for better collaboration among health systems, industry and government. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | BIDEN SOTU INVITE — First Lady Jill Biden has invited Kate Cox — who unsuccessfully tried to get an emergency abortion in Texas through a legal battle — to the State of the Union, the White House said Wednesday. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that the First Lady and President Joe Biden spoke with Cox Sunday and “thanked her for speaking out about the impact of the extreme abortion ban in Texas.” She said Cox will attend the March 7 speech. Cox was denied an abortion despite her fetus having a likely terminal condition, which would put her at risk if she continued the pregnancy, and she ultimately left the state. After an initial ruling that she could have an abortion — later blocked — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told providers they could still be prosecuted if they were to go forward with the procedure. Biden has repeatedly discussed the case. The invitation is the latest move from the Biden administration to put abortion rights front and center ahead of the 2024 election. ABORTION BANS AND RAPE — In states with total abortion bans post-Dobbs, more than 64,000 pregnancies came from rapes, researchers estimated in a letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Tuesday. The researchers, from Planned Parenthood of Montana, Hunter College, the University of California, San Francisco, and other institutions, leaned on CDC data. However, they stressed that the estimates have limitations. Rape can be difficult to measure accurately, they said, and the findings should be interpreted cautiously. “Nonetheless, the large number of estimated rape-related pregnancies in abortion ban states compared with the 10 or fewer legal abortions per month occurring in each of those states indicates that persons who have been raped and become pregnant cannot access legal abortions in their home state, even in states with rape exceptions,” the researchers wrote.
| | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care:   | | | | | GATES FOUNDATION HITS UP BILLIONAIRES — The world’s richest people should not only give money to elite universities and cultural institutions but also to initiatives benefiting the globe’s most vulnerable people, Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, wrote in the philanthropy’s annual letter today, Carmen reports. The net worth of the world’s more than 2,000 billionaires is $12.2 trillion, Suzman wrote. If each of them donated 0.5 percent of their wealth, it would unlock $61 billion at a time when developing countries struggle with high debt and rich countries face inflation and the need to respond to multiple global crises, according to Suzman. One billion dollars would be enough to save the lives of 2 million more mothers and babies by 2030, he wrote. Just over $7 billion would provide vaccines to 300 million people, preventing at least 7 million deaths, he added. Suzman touted the $8.6 billion the Gates Foundation committed to spending this year, the most in its history. That should reach $9 billion by 2026.
| | | | Enter the “room where it happens”, where global power players shape policy and politics, with Power Play. POLITICO’s brand-new podcast will host conversations with the leaders and power players shaping the biggest ideas and driving the global conversations, moderated by award-winning journalist Anne McElvoy. Sign up today to be notified of new episodes – click here. | | | | | | | | | Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) has been named partner at Healthsperien, where he will lead a new mental health and addiction policy practice. Keren Haruvi has been named chair of the board of directors of the Association for Accessible Medicines. She’s the president of Sandoz North America.
| | POLITICO’s Rachel Bluth reports on California lawmakers probing how much money artificial intelligence could save health care. The Hill reports on a court upholding Martin Shkreli’s ban from the pharmaceutical industry. The San Francisco Chronicle reports on health costs eating into household budgets.
| | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care: Hospitals provide critical care to patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They treat sicker patients and are better equipped to handle complications. They care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.
While many hospitals struggle, huge corporate insurance companies are banking record profits by often delaying and denying care. Now those insurers are pushing Congress to slash hospital care with new cuts.
Cutting hospital care won’t fix rising health care costs. It will only threaten patients’ access to the care they need. Get the facts: https://actnow.protecthealthcare.org/a/no-cuts-to-care | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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