| | | | | |  | | By Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn | With David Lim PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Pulse will not publish on Thursday, Nov. 26 and Friday, Nov. 27. We'll be back on our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 30. Editor's Note: POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
| | | — President-elect Joe Biden's top priority should be coronavirus response, voters told a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll. — Florida asked HHS to approve its plan to import prescription drugs from Canada, even as the industry sued to stop it. — CDC urged contact tracers to triage their efforts in new guidance that acknowledged the surging cases. THIS IS TUESDAY PULSE — Where we've officially ascertained that President Donald Trump's 2017 Obamacare repeal effort has failed. Send other breaking news and tips to ddiamond@politico.com and acancryn@politico.com.
| | | WE'VE OFFICIALLY TRANSITIONED TO THE TRANSITION — Nearly three weeks after the election, the president-elect's team is moving forward after GSA Administrator Emily Murphy on Monday finally acknowledged that Biden was the apparent winner of the election. Among the immediate changes: Biden's team gets federal funding to cover some of the transition costs, legal cover to contact federal agencies and a dot-gov "Build Back Better" website that includes information on Biden's Covid plans. "I'm glad the Administrator did her job and that the Biden-Harris Transition Team can now fully begin their preparations for the incoming administration, including taking critical steps to fight COVID-19 and save lives," House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal said in a statement. — What this means for the coronavirus response: The president-elect's team had repeatedly warned that the delayed transition could cost lives, with incoming officials losing valuable time and access to prepare for a smooth handoff in January. That argument had also become a political cudgel, with Democrats repeatedly hammering Trump as each additional day passed. — What Biden's team said: "Today's decision is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track," Yohannes Abraham, transition executive director for Biden, said in a statement. Abraham added that the team would use the coming days to "discuss the pandemic response, have a full accounting of our national security interests, and gain complete understanding of the Trump administration's efforts to hollow out government agencies." MORNING CONSULT/POLITICO POLL: VOTERS WANT BIDEN TO PRIORITIZE COVID FROM DAY ONE — That's according to a new poll out this morning, which quizzed registered voters on their "top" priorities for Biden's first 100 days in office. For instance, nearly 7 in 10 voters wanted Biden to focus on priorities like controlling the spread of Covid-19, passing a new coronavirus aid package and installing an effective distribution plan for a vaccine. (PULSE is curious about the 5 percent of respondents who said that controlling the spread of Covid-19 in the United States "should not be done.") In contrast, reversing Trump's policy agenda was generally a lower priority. Just one-third of respondents said that rejoining the World Health Organization should be a "top" priority, and only one-quarter of respondents said that removing funding for the border wall with Mexico as a "top" priority. BIDEN SET TO ANNOUNCE CABINET PICKS TODAY — As of press time, it wasn't clear whether any health officials would be formally named, but Washington's health wonk circle continues to buzz about a number of Obama administration veterans and other close Biden allies as possible picks for senior roles. (There's more below in PULSE.) | | | | KEEP UP WITH THE PEOPLE AND POLITICS DRIVING GLOBAL HEALTH: The global pandemic has revealed just how critical it is to keep up with the politics, policy, and people driving global health. Will America reclaim its leadership on the worldwide health stage with the new Biden administration in 2021? What impact could the president-elect's presidency have on global vaccine access and the international response to the pandemic? Our Global Pulse newsletter connects leaders, policymakers, and advocates to the politics impacting our global health. Join the conversation and subscribe today. | | | | |
| | | RON DeSANTIS ASKS HHS TO SIGN OFF ON Rx DRUG IMPORTS — The Florida governor on Monday formally asked HHS to allow the state to import prescription drugs from Canada, following the terms set by new federal drug importation regulation scheduled to take effect Nov. 30. The DeSantis plan would allow publicly funded health care providers to buy certain pharmaceuticals from Canadian suppliers, POLITICO's Arek Sarkissian writes. If approved by HHS, Florida's drug import program and others like it will be placed under the oversight of FDA. MEANWHILE: THE INDUSTRY SUES TO STOP THE PLAN — PhRMA, the Partnership for Safe Medicines and Council for Affordable Health Coverage on Monday filed suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C., blasting HHS' rule as a politically driven move that would create new distractions and safety challenges. "FDA has noted it is struggling to keep up with approving medicines while working around the clock to support COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccine development," PhRMA's James Stansel said in a statement. "Despite this, the administration is willing to divert precious FDA resources away from these efforts and to expose Americans to the risks that come with drug importation schemes."
| | | CDC URGES OVERWHELMED CONTACT TRACERS TO PRIORITIZE EFFORTS — The CDC on Monday acknowledged the difficulty of reaching every close contact of Covid-positive patients in time to help contain the disease's spread, POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein reports. "As the burden of COVID-19 worsens in an area, and the capacity to investigate new cases in a timely manner becomes more difficult or is not feasible, health departments should prioritize which cases to investigate and which contacts to trace," per the agency's new guidance. The CDC said state and local public health departments should prioritize contacting people who tested positive for Covid-19 within the last six days, members of their immediate household, the elderly and people with health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus, and people who live or work in congregate settings like nursing homes and prisons, where the virus has spread rapidly. Given increased demand on contact tracers, CDC advised against contacting infected people who are more than two weeks out from their positive test, except in rare circumstances, since it is likely too late to prevent them from spreading the virus to others. | | | IN THEIR OWN WORDS — A number of contenders for senior roles in the Biden administration have joined POLITICO's Pulse Check podcast in recent years to answer questions about their work in health care, experience and ambitions. For instance, RON KLAIN , tapped to be White House chief of staff, sat for a May 2016 interview where he discussed his work as Ebola czar and shared his concerns about lack of pandemic readiness — a perspective expected to shape Biden's early response to coronavirus. Meanwhile, VIVEK MURTHY, the former surgeon general who's been a top Biden adviser, sat down in November 2016 to discuss his efforts to communicate public health information and talk about his optimism about working with the next president. (That transition didn't work out as smoothly as Murthy hoped, with Trump firing him in April 2017.) Among the other Pulse Check guests in the mix for jobs with Biden: — MANDY COHEN , the North Carolina health secretary who's rumored for a senior role like CMS administrator, joined the podcast in October 2017 to explain her work to advance Democratic health policies despite a Republican legislature. — FARZAD MOSTASHARI , who served as the Obama administration's top health IT official and has been discussed for a job with Biden, sat down in May 2016 to vent about how government can take the wrong approach to regulations. — ZEKE EMANUEL , the former Obama official who's on Biden's Covid advisory group and is thought to be in the running for a senior White House job, joined in March 2017 to discuss his recent meeting with Trump and concerns about Obamacare repeal-and-replace efforts. — ATUL GAWANDE , the prominent surgeon and New Yorker writer who's advising Biden's Covid response and is a potential pick for a top job, sat for a November 2017 interview to discuss his previous stint in Washington working on the Clinton administration's health plan. — Rep. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, a former Delaware health official and close Biden ally who's been discussed for an administration position (or as the person to replace Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, if he's tapped to join Biden's White House), joined for a May 2019 interview on her emerging role as an HHS watchdog and legislator. — REBEKAH GEE , the former Louisiana health secretary, sat down in February 2020 for an exit interview about her efforts to expand Medicaid, push drug-pricing reforms and focus on maternal mortality.
| | | | DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT 2020: POLITICO will feature a special edition Future Pulse newsletter at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators determined to confront and conquer the most significant health challenges. Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses across our health systems, particularly in the treatment of our most vulnerable communities, driving the focus of the 2020 conference on the converging crises of public health, economic insecurity, and social justice. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage from December 7–9. | | | | |
| | Inside the Humphrey Building | | HHS, PENTAGON SIGN DEAL WITH PURITAN FOR MORE SWABS — The new $11.6 million contract with Puritan Medical Products will allow the Maine company to produce 3 million more nasal swabs per month by March 2021, POLITICO's David Lim reports. The goal is to include the swabs in point-of-care test kits made by Cue Health to enable 100,000 of the kits to be manufactured per day by March. HHS is currently conducting a pilot distribution of Cue's kits as part of a separate $481 million October contract. | | | NEW JERSEY: HOSPITALS TRY TO STOP TAX EXEMPTION CHANGES — The state's powerful hospital lobby is crying foul over Gov. Phil Murphy's attempt to alter a long-gestating bill that would codify property tax exemptions for nonprofit hospital properties, POLITICO's Sam Sutton reports. The proposed changes, which began circulating around the Statehouse roughly two weeks ago, would double the size of "community service contributions" nonprofit health systems would make in lieu of property taxes to municipalities, many of which are revenue-starved due the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. "The proposed fee increase could devastate an essential industry that is already struggling to care for our sick during this deadly pandemic," said Cathleen Bennett, president and CEO of the New Jersey Hospital Association, in a statement. "COVID has put many hospitals in financial jeopardy and further burdening them at this time severely limits their ability to support patients and staff." Murphy administration officials didn't respond to Sam's requests for comment. Hospitals have spent years fending off efforts to tighten their tax-exemptions. | | | "'The publication of the final rebate rule is an important milestone in this administration's drug pricing journey." Former Trump officials John O'Brien, Kelly Cleary and John Brooks sound an optimistic note even as they acknowledge that the recently issued rule will face challenges. "Patients deserve better than this rushed lame-duck process." In a pair of posts at Health Affairs, law professor Rachel Sachs looks at the Trump administration's flurry of last-minute drug pricing reforms. A sign of things to come? Some Maine nurses oppose a proposed requirement that health workers get mandatory flu shots, Joe Lawlor writes for the Portland Press Herald. Eight months after KHN's Heidi de Marco photographed Los Angeles under lockdown, she returned to the same iconic spots and spotted a surge in traffic — even as Covid-19 cases surge too.
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