Bolstering health care’s core

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

Aug 11, 2023 View in browser   By Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ben Leonard Presented by With Erin Schumaker Driving the Day HHS is investing more than $100 million in a program to shore up the nursing workforce. | AP Photo/Seth Wenig FUNDING FOR NURSING WORKFORCE — The Department of Health and Human Services announced it will award more than $100 million to grow the nursing workforce Wednesday, POLITICO’s Daniel Payne reports. It’s the latest step to address a nationwide shortage of health professionals. The funding will go to programs to train registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty — with some money going toward efforts to offer advanced certifications to those already working as nurses. “We’re doing this because we got marching orders,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters during a call. “We got marching orders directly from President Biden.” Why it matters: The U.S. faces a large and growing shortage of health care workers, particularly those who provide primary care. The administration and Congress continue to work on policies to increase the workforce of nurses, doctors, therapists and other health professionals. Some lawmakers have said the issue is among their top health care priorities for the year. The details: The awards will go to three main priorities, Carole Johnson, who heads Health Resources and Services Administration, said. HHS will grant: — Nearly $65 million to train nurses to deliver primary care through advanced nursing education and nurse practitioner residency and fellowship programs — About $26 million to recruit and support more nursing faculty to train a larger workforce — Almost $9 million to support licensed practical nurses’ training to become registered nurses What’s next? The newly announced program is part of a larger HHS workforce initiative, which spans the agency, from the CDC to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, according to Angela Ramirez, HHS deputy chief of staff. WELCOME TO FRIDAY PULSE. If you need a weekend watch, the romance movie “Red, White and Royal Blue” is now out on Prime Video, and we hear that POLITICO gets a mention. As always, send your tips, scoops and feedback to bleonard@politico.com and ccirruzzo@politico.com and follow along @_BenLeonard and @ChelseaCirruzzo. TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with POLITICO’s White House correspondent Adam Cancryn about the millions of Medicaid beneficiaries being dropped from the program as a result of the expiration of a pandemic policy meant to prevent vulnerable people from losing their health coverage — and how this change comes at the worst time for President Joe Biden. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast   A message from PhRMA: It's no surprise that hospitals pay one price for medicines and charge patients another. But a new report shows hospitals charge as much as 500% more. And that upcharge leads to higher costs for everyone. Especially patients. Get the details.   Medicaid In a private White House meeting, President Joe Biden's domestic council adviser sought to reassure health advocates that the administration is addressing the fallout from the expiration of a Medicaid pandemic policy. | Getty Images INSIDE THE PRIVATE WHITE HOUSE MEDICAID MEETING — Neera Tanden, President Joe Biden’s domestic policy council director, met Wednesday with several health advocacy groups to address concerns over mounting Medicaid coverage losses, three people familiar with the matter told POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn and Megan Messerly. The closed-door session was aimed at reassuring advocates that the issue remains a top priority for the White House amid simmering frustration over the administration’s reluctance to take stronger action against states that are drastically winnowing their Medicaid populations. More than 4 million people have lost coverage overall since April, most of whom were terminated for paperwork reasons. Tanden, along with Domestic Policy Council aides Christen Linke Young and Jessica Schubel, walked through the administration’s strategy, emphasizing that officials are making progress behind the scenes despite the ongoing coverage losses, the people familiar with the matter said. Still, the administration, on the same day, took a first step toward the kind of forceful action long sought by health groups, quietly publishing letters detailing which states are falling short of federal standards for their Medicaid renewal processes. A White House spokesperson confirmed the meeting, saying in a statement that it represented “just one of many that have taken place over the course of months to discuss the work underway to ensure Medicaid enrollees stay covered or are reconnected to other coverage options.”   YOUR TICKET INSIDE THE GOLDEN STATE POLITICAL ARENA: California Playbook delivers the latest intel, buzzy scoops and exclusive coverage from Sacramento and Los Angeles to Silicon Valley and across the state. Don't miss out on the daily must-read for political aficionados and professionals with an outsized interest in California politics, policy and power. Subscribe today.     At the Agencies PACT ACT SCRUTINIZED — The chairs of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees, Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), are concerned about error messages thousands of veterans received when filing online for benefits under the PACT Act, Ben reports. What happened: The VA had launched a major push to encourage veterans to file or submit an intent to file before Wednesday so their benefits could be backdated a year. A tech glitch due to high demand affected about 5,600 veterans in trying to file for backdated disability benefits under the legislation that expanded health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxins like burn pits. Bost noted he was encouraged to hear that the VA still honored the backdate for veterans affected. The VA said in a statement that it’s logged all the filings and no veterans will miss out on benefits because of the issues. The agency announced Thursday it was extending the deadline until Monday, Aug. 14. “VA’s failure to anticipate and prepare for the increased volume of submissions as the PACT Act deadline approached is unacceptable, given that the situation was easily foreseeable,” Bost said in a statement, arguing the VA took too long to address the issues. Tester is also worried about long phone-call wait times for veterans, which the VA said it’s working to decrease, saying there has been an unusually high number of calls. “We continue to work on these issues and will not rest until they are fully resolved,” the VA said. Further scrutiny: The news of the issues surfaced as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report Thursday on the VA’s benefit decisionmaking process. The report found that the process was “reasonable and logical” but said it should be more transparent, and without setting forward standards, inconsistencies could occur during decisionmaking. VA spokesperson Gary Kunich said the agency will “thoroughly review” the recommendations. TRACKING HEAT-RELATED CALLS — HHS’ climate change and health equity office launched a new national dashboard this week that tracks heat-related illnesses as heat waves hit parts of the country. Federal officials hope state and local officials can use the dashboard, which draws from heat-related emergency calls at the county and state levels, to help shape heat-mitigation strategies. The dashboard also displays the average time it took emergency services to reach a patient, how many patients were transported to a facility and how many died. It also provides a breakdown by age, race, gender and whether they are in a rural, suburban or urban area. Children, older adults, communities of color and lower-income communities are most vulnerable to extreme heat, HHS says, which means climate change and rising heat can worsen health outcomes for those groups. What the dashboard found: The national rate of heat-related emergency calls has climbed since 2018. Nearly half of states — mainly concentrated in the South and Mid-West — had a higher-than-average number of emergency calls related to heat between July 6 and Aug. 4. The dashboard will be updated weekly.   A message from PhRMA:   At the White House FUNDING ASKS FOR OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC — The White House is asking Congress for an additional $350 million for its overdose epidemic response. The funding, made in a supplemental budget request Thursday, would go toward SAMHSA to: — Provide grants to states and territories through its State Opioid Response Grant program, which provides medical screenings, educational programming, treatment referrals and behavioral services to people in treatment, — Award $50 million to the Indian Health Service for substance use treatment and prevention services The administration requested additional funding for the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, totaling $800 million among the three departments to reduce the supply of illegal fentanyl and expand addiction care. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the funding requests. The budget request came on the same day Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena met to outline plans to combat the flow of illegal fentanyl coming into the U.S. Bárcena told reporters Mexico plans to digitally monitor precursor chemicals for fentanyl that are brought across the U.S. border and then generate a database of substances to ensure they’re traceable. Names in the News Mike Loftus, director for pharmacy services at Mercy Health System, and Dr. Adrian Moran, chief medical officer at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center, have been elected to the 340B Health Board of Directors.   HITTING YOUR INBOX AUGUST 14—CALIFORNIA CLIMATE: Climate change isn’t just about the weather. It's also about how we do business and create new policies, especially in California. So we have something cool for you: A brand-new California Climate newsletter. It's not just climate or science chat, it's your daily cheat sheet to understanding how the legislative landscape around climate change is shaking up industries across the Golden State. Cut through the jargon and get the latest developments in California as lawmakers and industry leaders adapt to the changing climate. Subscribe now to California Climate to keep up with the changes.     What We're Reading The Associated Press reports on the record number of suicides reported in 2022. Kaiser Health News reports on how Montana lawmakers passed an anti-abortion measure similar to one voters had already rejected. The New York Times reports that human research trials at the New York Psychiatric Institute at Columbia have been paused while regulators review whether protocols were violated.   A message from PhRMA: You already know that billing at hospitals can be complicated. But a new report reveals something that might come as a shock. Did you know hospitals mark up some medicine prices 500%? Those costs get passed throughout the health care system and they lead to higher costs for patients. See the new data.     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 Evan Peng @thepngfile Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker Megan R. Wilson @misswilson   Follow us

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