| | | | | |  | | By Brianna Ehley | Presented by |  | | | With help from Rachel Roubein and Susannah Luthi 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.
| | | — State officials are cautiously cooperating with President Joe Biden's pledge to open vaccine eligibility to all adults by May. — House Democrats are planning to waive automatic spending cuts, but are hoping to extend a freeze on Medicare cuts at the same time — and Republicans may put up a fight. — Anthony Fauci is warning of another Covid surge if states lift restrictions too early. Good Monday morning and thanks for reading PULSE, where we are still raving about the mask fashion at the Grammys last night. PULSE is nominating Taylor Swift's flower face covering for first place, and Harry Styles' plaid number as a close second. Send mask fashion tips (and news tips!) to behley@politico.com . | | A message from the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA): Our current rebate system is broken. Ensuring discounts are passed on to patients will lower out-of-pocket costs, improve adherence, and address health disparities. The National Hispanic Council on Aging is urging the Biden Administration to support patients and move forward with rebate reform. Learn more. | | | | | | WILL STATES MEET BIDEN'S BOLD VACCINE PLEDGE? Governors say they're hopeful they can meet the president's May 1 goal, with a number of states pledging to open access to the shot even earlier. But many health officials are also cautious of overpromising — an acknowledgment that Biden's bold pledge could slam into the same issues that have bedeviled the vaccination effort from the get-go. Some state officials told POLITICO's Rachel Roubein that they worry his announcement could complicate efforts to ensure vulnerable populations are vaccinated. There are also concerns about making sure the appointment websites can handle a crush of web traffic and ensuring there is adequate vaccine supply to meet demand. From the administration's view: The White House has "spent a lot of time working through supply, the number of places, the number of vaccinators, and we believe May 1 is the right deadline," coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said at a Friday press briefing. | | | DEMOCRATS GEAR UP FOR PAYGO FIGHTS — House Democrats are planning to vote later this week on a measure to waive the "Pay-As-You-Go," or PAYGO, rules, following passage of their $1.9 trillion spending package, POLITICO's Susannah Luthi reports. But that same measure, introduced Friday by House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), would also extend the temporary pandemic freeze on provider Medicare cuts that didn't make it into the last stimulus bill — and which is set to expire at the end of this month. Democrats say the provision should pass easily as a standalone bill, even though it will need GOP votes in the Senate. Back when the GOP last held majorities in both chambers, Democrats agreed to waive PAYGO even after the Republicans passed their partisan tax package, and the temporary waiver of the 2 percent Medicare sequester was done in a bipartisan way last Congress. But lawmakers don't have an immediate deadline to waive PAYGO, and some on the GOP side are wondering why Democrats didn't extend the Medicare sequester freeze as part of their spending package. And with relations between the parties at an all-time low in Capitol Hill, some industry lobbyists expect a rocky road ahead. A Senate GOP aide said it's too early to tell how Republicans in the upper chamber will approach the issue, but that they'll be gauging whether Democrats "are actually serious about working on a bipartisan basis to cut spending and reduce the deficit." Yarmuth, meanwhile, has already struck a defiant tone, stating Friday that "if Republicans play political games and don't do their jobs, Medicare and the seniors that depend on it will pay the price." Meanwhile: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) today will introduce a measure to extend the moratorium on the Medicare sequester through the end of the Covid public health emergency. It does not address PAYGO, though it includes an offset for the budget cost of the sequester moratorium.
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| | | FAUCI WARNS OF ANOTHER COVID SPIKE — Fauci on Sunday warned that the U.S. could be hit with another surge, pointing to recent spikes in coronavirus cases across Europe. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Fauci said it is "absolutely no time to declare victory" and cautioned states not to lift restrictions too early. Some states, including Texas and Mississippi, have lifted mask mandates and moved to fully reopen businesses, a move Fauci called "risky and potentially dangerous." Other states, such as Maryland, have retained mask mandates but removed limits on capacities for businesses, POLITICO's Maya Parthasarathy writes. | | | |   | | | | | | CUOMO'S 'VACCINE CZAR' CALLED LOCAL OFFICIALS TO GAUGE LOYALTY — Larry Schwartz, a key aide heading up New York's vaccine rollout, has called local officials to gauge their loyalty to embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo, POLITICO'S Anna Gronewold reports. One unnerved Democratic county executive who received such a call filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general's office on Friday. The executive reportedly was concerned that their county's vaccine supply would be affected if they did not express support for the governor. | | | PLAINTIFFS ASK SCOTUS TO TOSS TRUMP TITLE X CASE — The American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood and other plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to dismiss their case against former President Donald Trump's overhaul of the Title X federal family planning program, which barred funds from clinics that offer abortions or abortion referrals, Susannah reports. The justices decided to take the case last month, although Biden has signaled he'll revoke the Trump rules. The petition, filed Friday night, followed a motion earlier in the week by a group of 19 conservative-leaning states to intervene and defend the Trump policy. The states in the coalition, led by Ohio, said they wanted to preemptively push for the case to be heard, given that Biden is expected to withdraw the rule anyway. The new filing from the plaintiffs also acknowledged this fact, but noted that the red states were not party to any of the lawsuits against Trump's overhaul. Further, the plaintiffs said that if the high court doesn't dismiss the case before the next round of briefings are due, they'll oppose the states' motion to intervene. | | | FIRST IN PULSE: NURSING HOME INDUSTRY LAYS OUT REFORMS — Two major industry associations, American Health Care Association and LeadingAge, are set to unveil their legislative agenda for revamping nursing homes, Rachel reports. More than 130,000 nursing home residents have died due to the pandemic, and longstanding issues within the industry, such as workforce shortages and spotty infection control, have been laid bare by it. The industry groups' plan calls for measures such as clearer standards for infection prevention specialists, mandating that a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment be kept in nursing homes and a 24-hour registered nurse on-duty at each home. What's next: Leaders of both trade groups told PULSE they plan to pitch their ideas to committee leaders on the Hill and to CMS. HAUNTED BY HEALTHCARE.GOV — Almost a decade ago, Zients and then-acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt set out to rescue a flailing federal website to help millions of people sign up for health insurance — a task that proved pivotal to Barack Obama's presidency. Now, Zients and Slavitt are helping President Joe Biden roll out another massive federal website, this time intended to help millions sign up for the Covid-19 vaccine. The Biden team "will have to design a virtual on-ramp that can handle millions of newly eligible people seeking appointments without crashing," write POLITICO's Joanne Kenen, Adam Cancryn and Darius Tahir. What to expect: The vaccine scheduling effort will be based on the government's existing VaccineFinder.org website rather than built from scratch — a move aimed at making the process more efficient and avoiding some of the pitfalls and complexities that troubled HealthCare.gov. BIRX JOINS AIR PURIFYING COMPANY SELLING ANTI-COVID TECH — Trump's former coronavirus response coordinator, Deborah Birx, is taking a new role as chief medical and scientific adviser for an air filtration company focused on reducing Covid-19 infections, Adam and David Lim report. The company, ActivePure Technology, has aggressively marketed its products even as it awaits an FDA review, asserting on its website that its technology has a proven "kill rate of over 99.9 percent of airborne SARS-COV-2 within 3 minutes." Birx also recently joined the George W. Bush Institute and the board of a Bay Area investment firm.
| | A message from the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA): The National Hispanic Council on Aging is urging the Biden Administration to move forward with rebate reform. Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by chronic disease but lowering out of pocket costs can increase medication adherence and reduce health care disparities in our system. This is done by ensuring rebate dollars are passed on to patients so they can afford essential medication. We need rebate reform today! Learn more. | | | | | | Rebecca Heilig has joined the Federation of American Hospitals as vice president of legislation. She was previously associate director of business outreach for the White House Office of Public Liaison.
| | | West Virginia health officials are setting up vaccination sites at homeless shelters and driving around the countryside to inoculate the state's most vulnerable residents, Bloomberg's Anna Edney reports. House lawmakers are in disagreement over when they can return to normal operating procedure since 75 percent of members have reported being vaccinated, Axios' Kadia Goba reports. Preliminary results from a Facebook study examining vaccine hesitancy among U.S. users show small groups, including some affiliated with QAnon, are playing a big role in pushing vaccine skepticism on the social media site, The Washington Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin reports. | | | | GET DAILY REGULATORY UPDATES STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX: AgencyIQ's daily newsletter, FDA Today, provides actionable and insightful explanations of the latest FDA developments impacting the life sciences industry. Sign up for free today. | | | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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