Key insights from POLITICO's Health Care Summit

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

Mar 14, 2024 View in browser   By Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ben Leonard Driving the Day Kellyanne Conway, president of KAConsulting LLC, urged Republicans to craft a message on abortion that would appeal to most Americans. | Rod Lamkey for POLITICO POLITICO HEALTH SUMMIT HIGHLIGHTS — Abortion, humanitarian aid to Gaza and opioids were key issues on the minds of top government officials, lawmakers and health policy experts at POLITICO’s Health Care Summit on Wednesday in Washington. On abortion: Neera Tanden, the White House’s domestic policy adviser, pointed to the federal abortion restrictions some Republicans have been mulling. “Right now, we know the moderate position on the other side is a nationwide ban,” she said. Her portrayal of Democrats as defending the rights of Americans from Republicans looking to take them is a hint of what’s to come in the months leading up to the 2024 election. But influential Republicans are forming their own strategy to address the issue of abortion through the election. Kellyanne Conway, president of KAConsulting LLC and former senior counselor to then-President Donald Trump, said Republicans should look to appeal to the majority of Americans in their proposals. “I think that to show concession and consensus is really the way to go,” she said. On opioids: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) blamed his state’s and the country’s opioid epidemic partly on the Food and Drug Administration. “The FDA started it. They keep bringing more products,” Manchin said of the agency that approved the prescription opioids that started the addiction crisis. The FDA has historically approved opioids as they do any other drug — by evaluating the safety and efficacy of the proposed medication. But lawmakers and others have pushed it to consider public health concerns more expansively, and FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has suggested the agency needs greater authority from Congress. Namandjé Bumpus, the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner, defended her agency. “We make science-based decisions,” said Bumpus. “We leverage our science in our decisionmaking to make the best decisions we can,” she said. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said he saw nothing wrong with tougher policies like San Francisco’s recent decision to drug test welfare recipients. “We should be willing to consider anything that helps us tackle this drug addiction crisis because so many people are dying today,” he said. “We need to get a grip on this.” On humanitarian aid to Gaza: Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said she asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to improve compliance with international humanitarian law” during her visit to Israel late last month. "Even if Hamas doesn’t care about civilian life, and it’s proven that again and again, that doesn’t relieve the obligation of a combatant to observe those principles,” she said. “Clearly, more needs to be done.” On doctor pay: Two lawmakers — Reps. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) — said they believed changes to how doctors are paid could be on the way sooner rather than later. Portions of legislation addressing the Medicare payment schedule for doctors “will be baked into” an appropriations package expected to advance this month, Kelly said. “We don’t want doctors to cut back on their Medicare patients or to stop doing some of the charity care they do,” Kelly said. Bucshon also emphasized the importance of fixing the system that determines doctor pay from Medicare, saying he thought reforms could be included in a larger health package to be passed before the end of the year. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. A California bill could ban foods with synthetic food dyes in schools. Bye-bye, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Send your tips, scoops and feedback to ccirruzzo@politico.com and bleonard@politico.com and follow along @ChelseaCirruzzo and @_BenLeonard_.   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.     Drug Pricing PhRMA COO Lori Reilly discusses the impact that Medicare drug negotiations will have on the pharmaceutical industry at POLITICO's Health Care Summit. | Rod Lamkey for POLITICO MORE SUMMIT NEWS: PhRMA CAMPAIGN MONEY — PhRMA COO Lori Reilly said the pharmaceutical lobby won’t overwhelmingly support candidates this campaign cycle who advocate for Medicare price negotiations. Such candidates tend to be Democrats. “It’s hard to support members who don’t understand the need for research and development” with campaign donations, Reilly said at the POLITICO Health Care Summit. Most of PhRMA’s donations this election cycle have gone toward Republican candidates, none of whom voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. PhRMA, which has taken the Biden administration to court over its price negotiation policies, has repeatedly said that the IRA stifles research and development for pharmaceutical companies seeking to make new small molecule drugs. Such drugs make up about 90 percent of all medications. “Companies have to consider how to place the research dollars,” she said. Around the Agencies INVESTIGATION INTO CHANGE ATTACK — The HHS Office for Civil Rights is investigating a massive cyberattack last month that’s caused disruptions across the health care system. In a letter to health care leaders Wednesday, HHS OCR Director Melanie Fontes Rainer said the investigation into Change Healthcare, which handles billions of health care transactions annually, will focus on whether patients’ health information was compromised and and United HealthGroup, which owns Change Healthcare, complied with HIPAA rules. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, joined by several White House officials, hosted a roundtable Tuesday with UnitedHealth and other health care leaders to discuss the attack after HHS on Sunday urged UnitedHealth to take responsibility for it. “We will cooperate with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) investigation,” a UnitedHealth spokesperson said in a statement. “Our immediate focus is to restore our systems, protect data and support those whose data may have been impacted. We are working with law enforcement to investigate the extent of impacted data.” Public Health MATERNAL DEATH RATE LOWER THAN THOUGHT — A new study says the CDC overstates the maternal death rate due to faulty reporting guidelines, Chelsea reports. Recalculating the maternal death rate using a method that only records maternal death when pregnancy is specifically listed among causes of death on a death certificate found a lower, more stable rate of maternal mortality in the U.S., according to the study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, out Wednesday. Why it matters: The CDC has been raising the alarm for years about a skyrocketing maternal death rate, which officials said nearly doubled between 2018 and 2021. The CDC data collection on maternal health has evolved over the past two decades. In 2003, states began adding a checkbox system for death certificates to indicate if a deceased patient was pregnant, but the CDC found this caused overreporting in the maternal death rate, particularly among older women. In 2018, the CDC changed the rules: For women ages 45 and older, a maternal death is recorded only if the death certificate includes the checkbox that the patient was pregnant and lists a maternal-related condition as the cause of death. However, the authors of the new study recalculated maternal deaths, restricting maternal death only when pregnancy was listed among the causes of death. While the CDC’s method found a maternal death rate of 9.65 per 100,000 live births from 1999 to 2002 and 23.6 from 2018 to 2021, researchers found, via their method, a death rate of 10.2 per 100,000 live births from 1999 to 2002 and 10.4 from 2018 to 2021. ACOG weighs in: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called the study “incomplete.” Dr. Christopher Zahn, interim CEO and chief of clinical practice of ACOG, said in a statement that while data collection could be improved, the surveillance system that the study evaluated is only one insight into maternal health outcomes. “For instance, data that come from maternal mortality review committees are broader and more in-depth and reflect a longer period of time,” he said. Providers IMMIGRANTS’ KIDS DOMINATE HEALTH WORKFORCE — Adult children of immigrants make up 13 percent of the nation’s doctors, surgeons and other health care providers — a higher share than adults who have at least one parent born in the U.S. The KFF analysis, out Wednesday, also found that adult children of immigrants play a particularly large role as direct-care workers in long-term settings, making up almost 3 in 10, or 28 percent, of them. As the researchers note, the analysis comes as immigration remains a hot-button political issue and some states have moved to limit the participation of some immigrants in the workforce. “The current health care workforce shortage in particular … may be exacerbated by such limitations given the disproportionate roles of both adult children of immigrants as well as immigrant adults in various health care occupations and industries,” researchers wrote. Names in the News Aisha Furbach has been named vice president of child health quality at the Children’s Hospital Association. She was previously at Legacy Health. David Allen has joined Blue Cross Blue Shield Association as managing director of media relations. He was previously at AHIP. WHAT WE'RE READING STAT reports on a court decision upholding a controversial Arkansas law on the 340B pharmacies. KFF Health News reports that the Social Security chief wants to reform the agency’s system of clawing back overpayments.   DON’T MISS AN IMPORTANT TALK ON ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS IN CA: Join POLITICO on March 19 to dive into the challenges of affordable prescription drugs accessibility across the state. While Washington continues to debate legislative action, POLITICO will explore the challenges unique to California, along with the potential pitfalls and solutions the CA Legislature must examine to address prescription drug affordability for its constituents. REGISTER HERE.       Follow us on Twitter Dan Goldberg @dancgoldberg Chelsea Cirruzzo @chelseacirruzzo Katherine Ellen Foley @katherineefoley Lauren Gardner @Gardner_LM Kelly Hooper @kelhoops Robert King @rking_19 Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ David Lim @davidalim Megan Messerly @meganmesserly Alice Miranda Ollstein @aliceollstein Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker Megan R. Wilson @misswilson   Follow us

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