| | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard and Chelsea Cirruzzo | Presented by 340B Health | With Carmen Paun
| | |  The House passed a bipartisan bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael Burgess, pictured, that would require the CBO to weigh whether a bill would save money over 30 years if requested by Congress. | Rod Lamkey/AP Photo | CBO REFORM TO COME? Lawmakers have long complained that the Congressional Budget Office’s scores don’t sufficiently reflect the benefits of preventive care and passed a bill Tuesday aimed at fixing their concerns. The House passed a bill from Reps. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) by voice vote Tuesday night that would require the CBO to weigh whether a bill would save money over a 30-year budget window instead of 10, if Congress requests it. The nonpartisan CBO’s cost estimates can be crucial factors in whether a bill is signed into law. It’s not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will take up the bill, though the vote signals strong bipartisan House support. Schumer’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. CBO spokesperson Deborah Kilroe didn’t say whether the office had a stance on the bill but pointed to previous CBO presentations that said preventive medical care often improves health but increases overall spending. The bigger picture: Estimating the future costs and benefits of legislation can be difficult. Last year, the scorekeeper said it overestimated federal health spending between 2010 and 2020 by 9 percent — meaning it was off by $1.1 trillion. “It makes sense to take a longer-term view,” Larry Levitt, KFF executive vice president for health policy, told Pulse. “But we should also be humble about the accuracy of budget projections years in the future, let alone decades.” Burgess, a co-chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, has zeroed in on the CBO’s methodology this Congress along with the House Budget Committee. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We are asking that CBO … give us a score for the pound of cure that is going to result,” Burgess said last month. Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as presidential candidate John McCain’s top economic policy adviser, told Pulse it’s unlikely that many situations where there will be “great confidence” in projections decades into the future. He pointed to weight-loss drugs like Ozempic — which the CBO is examining — as an example. “We have a lot of speculation that we can get people on it, and they avoid obesity and diabetes," Holtz-Eakin said. “That all sounds good, but … how fast does it happen and how big will it be? How do you score it? That's really hard." Sherry Glied, a former Obama HHS official and CBO technical reviewer, told Pulse that lengthening the required window is not inherently less reliable, adding that studies can offer evidence of preventive benefit over decades. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. Close to 100 bipartisan members of Congress wrote to HHS to go further using its authority to respond to the Change Healthcare cyberattack. Reach us and send us your tips, news and scoops at bleonard@politico.com or ccirruzzo@politico.com. Follow along @_BenLeonard_ and @ChelseaCirruzzo.
| | | | A message from 340B Health: Support the 340B PATIENTS Act The 340B PATIENTS Act eliminates harmful big pharma restrictions on 340B savings that are vital for expanding health care and support for patients and rural communities in need. By restricting 340B pharmacy partnerships, drugmakers have siphoned billions from the health care safety net solely to bolster their profits. The 340B PATIENTS Act stops this damaging behavior. We call on Congress to support this vital legislation. Learn more. | | | | | | | 
Former U.S. President Barack Obama, right, will virtually join President Joe Biden on Saturday to commemorate the ACA's 14th anniversary. | Mark Makela/Getty Images | BIDEN TAPS OBAMA, PELOSI ON ACA — President Joe Biden is leaning on former President Barack Obama and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to rally virtually with activists Saturday to mark the Affordable Care Act’s 14th anniversary, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein scoops. They’ll make the case to voters that Biden is improving health care affordability and deserves a second term. It’s part of a broader effort that includes a slew of digital ads and events in swing states, which Biden needs to win in the November election. The president has long signaled he’ll lean into his health care record, but the moves show that the campaign is taking the strategy to a new level. It will be the first public joint Obama-Biden appearance since Biden launched his reelection bid. “The Affordable Care Act is so significant for both of them,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of Biden’s reelection campaign, told POLITICO. “It really shows what it means to have leaders fighting for you and doing things people thought were impossible.” Democrats have campaigned on health care amid GOP messaging on immigration, crime and inflation.
| | STILL AWAITING SPENDING BILL TEXT — Congressional leaders have yet to release bill text for a spending package that includes HHS and about 70 percent of the federal government. Lawmakers will need to move quickly to avoid a shutdown, with government funding expiring at the end of the day Friday. Text is expected Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to give his members 72 hours to review the legislation, though he hasn't yet said if he'll stick with that promise.
PROGRESSIVE PUSH ON PANDEMIC AGREEMENT — A dozen progressives in Congress are urging Biden to ensure equitable access to vaccines, tests and drugs in a future pandemic as part of ongoing negotiations for a pandemic agreement at the World Health Organization.
Led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the 12 Democrats want the Biden administration to attach pricing-related conditions to any products developed with public funding in a pandemic and share intellectual property and technology with other countries in a future health emergency so they could easily develop their own products if needed. “A fairer, more equitable response to the next public health outbreak is in everyone’s interest,” Sanders and the other progressive lawmakers wrote in a letter to Biden Tuesday. But the request clashes with another from moderate Democrats, led by Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, asking Biden not to share intellectual property or attach conditions to public funding that would discourage companies from developing new health care products in response to a pandemic. Biden, facing a tough reelection campaign in which some Republicans have used the pandemic agreement negotiations to warn, without proof, of a threat to America’s sovereignty, is siding with his moderate colleagues — and the pharma industry — in his position on IP during the talks.
| | | | JOIN US ON 3/21 FOR A TALK ON FINANCIAL LITERACY: Americans from all communities should be able to save, build wealth, and escape generational poverty, but doing so requires financial literacy. How can government and industry ensure access to digital financial tools to help all Americans achieve this? Join POLITICO on March 21 as we explore how Congress, regulators, financial institutions and nonprofits are working to improve financial literacy education for all. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | MEDICATION ABORTION UPTICK — Medication abortion use is on the rise post-Dobbs, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights think tank. Abortion pills had already made up more than half of abortions before the 2022 decision at 53 percent in 2020, but that figure jumped to 63 percent in 2023, according to new data from the group.
|  | The group's research estimates that 642,700 medication abortions were induced in the country last year. The data doesn’t include self-managed abortions outside of the health care system or abortion pills mailed to people in states with abortion restrictions. The findings come after the FDA under the Biden administration allowed doctors to prescribe mifepristone — one of two drugs patients take to induce an abortion — via virtual appointments and to ship the drugs via mail. They also come as the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on a case about how patients can access mifepristone, the most commonly used abortion medication, next week. PERSONAL ABORTION STORY — Eva Burch, a pregnant Democratic Arizona state senator, told lawmakers in a floor speech this week that she plans to get an abortion because her pregnancy isn’t viable. The Mesa lawmaker said that restrictions on the procedure in Arizona— like ultrasound requirements and what she sees as disinformation on abortion — were out of touch. Burch went public to show “how the laws that we pass in Arizona actually do impact people in practice and not just in theory.” She said she had an abortion while running for office in 2022 when her pregnancy then was also unviable. Her story comes ahead of a proposed ballot measure that would codify abortion rights in the state’s constitution and as Democrats lean into messaging on reproductive rights.
| | | | A message from 340B Health:   | | | | | Jennifer Friedman has joined Federal Health Policy Strategies. She was previously vice president of government affairs at Outset Medical and is a Biden HHS and House Ways and Means alum. Ariel Gonzalez is joining the Vogel Group to lead its health care practice. He was previously at Chamber Hill Strategies.
| | | | Easily connect with the right N.Y. State influencers and foster the right relationships to champion your policy priorities. POLITICO Pro. Inside New York. Learn more. | | | | | | | | | Leavitt Partners is floating a “compromise approach” on site-neutral payments, a policy proposal that has drawn hospital opposition. POLITICO’s Blake Jones has five takeaways from POLITICO’s event, Corrective Action: How to Address Prescription Drug Costs. STAT reports on private equity-backed opioid treatment clinics pushing back against calls for reform.
| | | | A message from 340B Health: Support the 340B PATIENTS Act
340B hospitals are the backbone of the nation’s health care safety net, providing essential services to patients with low incomes and those living in rural America. 340B hospitals play a vital role in delivering 77% of Medicaid hospital care, providing 67% of the nation’s unpaid care, and offering comprehensive specialty services that otherwise might not be available. 340B helps lower health care costs and enable doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to provide expanded care for the benefit of their community—all at no cost to the taxpayer.
The 340B PATIENTS Act will end harmful drug company restrictions on 340B savings that are vital for protecting patients and communities. By restricting 340B pharmacy partnerships, big pharma has siphoned billions from the health care safety net solely to bolster its profits. The 340B PATIENTS Act stops this damaging behavior. We call on Congress to support this vital legislation. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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