| | | | | |  | | By Sarah Owermohle | Presented by |  | | | With Alice Miranda Ollstein 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. | | | — Ravaged infrastructure, icy streets and an unstable power grid are threatening to overwhelm Texas hospitals and stall its vaccination progress. — Republicans are trying to sink California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's nomination to be HHS secretary. — House Democrats are getting the next Covid relief package ready for a floor vote this week. WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE. Halloween has come early. Your regular author, Adam Cancryn, is back on Tuesday, but in the meantime, send tips to sowermohle@politico.com and acancryn@politico.com. | | | | A message from PhRMA: As we usher in a new administration and Congress, there are many things on which we can all agree, like ending the pandemic. America's biopharmaceutical companies will continue to develop treatments and vaccines to combat COVID-19, and we are working closely with governments, insurers and others to make sure vaccines and treatments are accessible and affordable. | | | | | | THE HEALTH CRISIS UNFOLDING IN TEXAS —President Joe Biden declared a major emergency in Texas late Friday in the wake of extreme winter weather, broadening federal aid from critical supplies like water and generators to assistance with temporary housing, home repairs and food security. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this weekend characterized the declaration as a "first step" and as just a partial approval of his initial request. What we know: — Essential care is in dire straits. Hundreds of nursing homes were cut off from power for nearly a week and forced to rely on generators — or, in roughly 20 cases, evacuate patients to other areas, as my colleagues Susannah Luthi and Rachel Roubein wrote Friday. Hospitals also struggled with power problems, water shortages and broken pipes, all of which jeopardized care, including dialysis treatments, they add. — Vaccinations stalled. Hundreds of thousands of shots — first and second doses alike — were delayed last week as the freeze halted vaccine shipments and administration, the Texas Tribune's Perla Trevizo reported. — The problems persist. Water supply issues remain for at least half of Texans, CNN's Eric Levenson reported Sunday. Some hospital staff have camped out for days and resorted to using the bathroom in bags, report the Austin American-Statesman's Ryan Autullo and Tony Plohetski. Vaccine distribution should be back on track "by the middle of the week," National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, though at least 6 million doses had been delayed by the weather last week. There is some good news on the horizon, though: Texas could receive its biggest vaccine shipment yet this week. REPUBLICANS AIM TO DRAW BLOOD OVER BECERRA CONFIRMATION — Republican lawmakers and conservative groups will launch an ad blitz this week to pressure vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in 2022 to vote against Becerra, who goes before two different Senate committees this week. Though they likely lack the votes to block his confirmation, they're hoping to make those who support him pay a political price. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is spending tens of thousands of campaign dollars on digital ads targeting Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein scoops. The ads hit Becerra for his work defending the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate and California Gov. Gavin Newsom's pandemic restrictions. The Georgia Republican Party is also hoping to make Becerra's confirmation a liability for Warnock, telling Alice: "If Raphael Warnock thinks voting to confirm Becerra represents the best interests of Georgia, he is in for a rude awakening in 2022." Will it work? Democrats say the GOP's efforts to stop the confirmation of the first-ever Latino HHS secretary amid the pandemic will backfire. Becerra and his allies plan to highlight his 12 terms in the House of Representatives, as well as his work drafting the Affordable Care Act and his record prosecuting opioid and tobacco manufacturers. DEEP DIVE — As a California representative, Becerra pushed the Obama White House for more health care for undocumented immigrants in the ACA, POLITICO's Maggie Severns reports. But Republicans may try to frame that as a liability. "His interest is in trying to get illegal aliens on government-subsidized health care options," a Cotton aide told Maggie. "If he was confirmed, he could weaponize HHS as a mechanism to push for open borders, and legitimize the illegal alien agenda that he's pushing for." There is also the question of whether moderate Democrats, including Biden, would back Secretary Becerra on the issue — or would caution him against big changes to health care for immigrants, Maggie writes. | | | | NEW - "THE RECAST" NEWSLETTER: Power dynamics are changing. "Influence" is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is our new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops, dispatches from across the country and new voices that challenge "business as usual." Don't miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | HOUSE DEMOCRATS TEE UP PANDEMIC RELIEF BILL VOTE — The House Budget Committee meets this afternoon to clear the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for a floor vote by Friday or Saturday. Democrats aren't expecting a single GOP vote for their aid package, which includes a $15 hourly minimum wage hike and $350 billion for state and local aid, writes POLITICO's Caitlin Emma. They plan to shepherd it through the Senate with a filibuster-proof procedural maneuver known as reconciliation, allowing them to pass it with their razor-thin Senate majority. Meanwhile, House Republican leaders circulated a whip notice Friday urging their members to vote against the bill, arguing that it provides "a bailout" for blue states and pays "people not to work." | | | |   | | | | | | U.S. NEARS A HALF MILLION COVID DEATHS — The country is close to its next terrible milestone in the coronavirus pandemic: Half a million deaths from the virus. There were nearly 499,000 recorded deaths in the United States by Sunday evening, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker. "It's nothing like we've ever been through in the last 102 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic," Fauci said on CNN Sunday, as our Eleanor Mueller writes. "People decades from now are going to be talking about this as a terribly historic milestone in the history of this country." VAX SPRINT LEAVES BEHIND MINORITIES — Though the Biden administration has prioritized equitable vaccine distribution, putting that goal into practice has proven difficult. Local public health officials are under pressure to quickly distribute their limited supplies and reach high-risk groups. But so far, data continues to show that people in underserved and minority communities are getting vaccinated at a much slower pace than people in wealthier white ones, write Joanne Kenen and Brianna Ehley. "We could see the inequities get worse before they get better," said Shereef Elnahal, a former New Jersey health commissioner who heads University Hospital in Newark. "The share of first doses going to white Americans has increased slightly since the first month of inoculations, from 60.4 percent to 63.7 percent," Joanne and Brianna report. "The share of doses to Black Americans has also risen slightly, from 5.4 percent to 6.3 percent, while it fell for Latinos from 11.5 percent to 8.8 percent." FACEBOOK'S MISINFORMATION CONTROL EFFORTS BACKFIRE — The social networking site's attempts to police vaccine misinformation are unintentionally blocking messages from cities, health care providers and community and faith-based groups promoting Covid shots, Darius Tahir reports. "Paid-for messages from at least 110 groups aimed at raising awareness of how the vaccines work or where to get inoculated were flagged and sent to Facebook's register of political messages," Darius writes. Ad sponsors can appeal, but many say the process is too burdensome. That's led some public health experts to question if Facebook is still a useful source of information on Covid-19, given the site's difficulties combating anti-vaccination groups in the past. | | | | TUNE IN TO GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS: Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded over the past year amid a global pandemic. This podcast helps to identify and understand the impediments to smart policymaking. Subscribe and start listening today. | | | | | | | | Biden officially announced Friday that Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is his nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Adam, Susannah and Rachel break down what that means. | | | | A message from PhRMA: Despite our divisions, there are many things on which Americans agree. The biopharmaceutical industry is committed to working with Congress and the new administration to:
• End the pandemic. The industry remains committed to getting COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to patients, and we are working closely with governments, insurers and others to make sure they are accessible and affordable.
• Make health care better and more affordable. People want quality, affordable health coverage that works when they need it. We support solutions that will help patients better afford their medicines and protect access to innovation today and in the future.
• Build a more just, equitable society. We must address systemic racism, as has been made clear by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others and the outsized impact of the pandemic on Black and Brown communities. We remain committed to this important issue on behalf of our communities, the patients we serve and our employees. | | | | | | "We have a legacy system that is one-sixth of the economy," former President Barack Obama told Huffington Post's Jonathan Cohn about the challenges to restructuring American health care, in an excerpt from Cohn's forthcoming book, "The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage." Biden's pick for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, made more than $2 million on pandemic consulting and speeches last year, even while advising the president on the pandemic during the 2020 campaign, The Washington Post's Dan Diamond reports. Walmart's ambition to push into health care is in flux after leadership changes and a new e-commerce focus amid the pandemic, Insider's Blake Dodge and Shelby Livingston report. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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