| | | | |  | | By Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ben Leonard | | Presented by |  | | | With Carmen Paun and Alice Miranda Ollstein
| | |  Sen. Chuck Schumer told parents he'd schedule a vote in the Senate on a bill that would require social media sites to make their platforms safe for kids. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | PARENTS VS. THEIR KIDS’ SOCIAL MEDIA — A coalition of parents’ groups is lobbying Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hold a vote on the Kids Online Safety Act. KOSA would require social media sites — which parents blame for their children’s deaths — to stop recommending content promoting suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse and sexual exploitation, POLITICO’s Ruth Reader reports. Sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the bill has 67 other senators among its co-sponsors, including Schumer. “Big tech is out there and has never been spending more money than they are now on this type of lobbying: commercials on the Hill, articles — I mean, they’re everywhere,” said Julianna Arnold, a member of advocacy group ParentSOS. “It’s because they’re scared. They know this is the beginning." The parents have prominent allies, including former Rep. Dick Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who led his party in the House from 1989 to 2003 and now helms the Council for Responsible Social Media. Why it matters: If the parents succeed, it would represent a major defeat for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other popular sites that have long succeeded in holding off regulation — and open the door to broader legislation to hold the sites liable for any harms they cause. Tech firms’ response: The tech firms say they’ve gone to great lengths to shield kids from online predators and inappropriate posts, and individual firms and the industry lobbying group NetChoice are spending big to convince lawmakers to hold off. They say regulation would violate free speech rights. “What these laws essentially are doing is asking either lawmakers or people sitting in Silicon Valley to make broad-based judgments about what is developmentally appropriate for my kids,” said Carl Szabo, general counsel at NetChoice. What’s next: Schumer, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, has promised the parents a vote, said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, which advocates for kids’ safety online, after he and a group of grieving mothers met with him this month. WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE. This newsletter is brought to you by a writer who spent the whole weekend watching “Bridgerton.” Send your tips, scoops and feedback to ccirruzzo@politico.com and bleonard@politico.com and follow along @ChelseaCirruzzo and @_BenLeonard_.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: The size of the 340B drug pricing program has ballooned in recent years, but patients aren’t seeing the benefit. Instead, hospital systems, chain pharmacies and PBMs are exploiting the program to generate massive profits. Let’s fix 340B so it better helps patients. | | | | | | | 
A shortage of inspectors could impact some states' ability to monitor staffing levels in nursing homes. | David Ramos/Getty Images | SHORTAGE OF NURSING HOME INSPECTORS — The Biden administration wants states to enforce its major nursing home staffing mandate, POLITICO’s Robert King reports. But stagnant federal funding combined with high inflation and competitive salaries has led to inspector shortages in some states. CMS covers most of the cost of those inspectors. “Our staffing levels have been funded flat, and they are dropping because we can’t keep people hired,” said Kody Kinsley, HHS secretary for North Carolina, which has a 30 percent turnover rate among inspectors. His state isn’t alone. South Carolina is asking its state legislature for an extra $6 million to hire more staff and new vehicles, and other states such as Idaho and Missouri are pleading with the federal government for more money. The White House included an extra $85 million in its latest proposed FY25 budget for inspectors, a 20 percent boost compared with this year. But that amount isn’t a sure thing in a divided Congress. Meanwhile, states continue to deal with a backlog of inspections due to a surge of quality complaints since Covid-19. More than a quarter of all 15,000 homes didn’t get their annual inspection in at least 16 months, a 2023 Senate report finds. “This kind of oversight can’t be done out of thin air,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. “It requires real commitment and funding.”
| | | | A message from PhRMA:   | | | | | COUNTRIES AGREE ON INTERNATIONAL HEALTH RULES CHANGES — Member countries of the World Health Organization agreed “in principle” Saturday to amendments to a set of rules governing response to disease outbreaks that were last updated in 2005, Carmen reports. While the WHO didn’t detail the changes to the International Health Regulations, it said the amendments build on more than 300 proposals countries made after the height of the pandemic and are intended to improve countries’ ability to prepare for, detect and respond to global disease outbreaks. Negotiators will meet this week to finalize a few outstanding issues, and the package of changes will be presented to the WHO’s general assembly on May 27 for approval. A separate meeting starting today in Geneva will aim to find agreement on a pandemic accord, which member countries have been negotiating for years with little success. Why it matters: The International Health Regulations are a legally binding agreement on all WHO member countries. The U.S. pushed for some of the changes in 2021, including introducing varying levels of alerts the WHO can sound for different disease outbreaks. But all 49 Republican senators told Biden in a letter earlier this month that they don’t want the changes to be considered at the WHO meeting next week, because it doesn’t give countries the necessary time to consider amendments.
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF HEALTHCARE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like healthcare, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced and better sourced than any other. Our healthcare reporting team—including Alice Miranda Ollstein, Megan Messerly and Robert King—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of health policy and the healthcare industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | | OB-GYNs FACE NEW THREATS — The newly inaugurated president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Dr. Stella Dantas, warned attendees at the group’s annual gathering in San Francisco on Sunday that their field is under unprecedented threat, Alice reports. State-level “legislative interference” in reproductive medicine has increased since the fall of Roe v. Wade, she said. “Politicians are preventing us from practicing evidence-based medicine. Fear of criminalization, or of professional or personal retribution, is keeping so many of us from giving our patients the support, the counsel and the care that they need. Maternity care deserts are growing,” she said. “We are trying to confront a maternal mortality crisis while concurrently fighting for policies to support access to care for our patients.” Dantas, an OB-GYN based in Portland, Oregon, said those factors are exacerbating the preexisting epidemic of burnout in the field that’s driving many to retire or simply quit, and she pleaded with attendees to “stay and remain a part of this specialty and this community.”
| | | BRADY SETS UP SHOP ON K STREET — Former Rep. Kevin Brady can’t quit Washington: The Texas Republican is joining top law and lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as a senior policy consultant, POLITICO’s Megan Wilson reports. Akin is active on the tax, trade and health care issues that are within Brady’s wheelhouse, as he sat on the House Ways and Means Committee for 15 years, leading it from 2015 to 2019. Brady, who retired from Congress last year, told Megan he won’t lobby for the firm’s clients but merely provide advice. There are “issues and policies I care a lot about,” he said. “You can make a difference, engaging in these areas” from the outside. Brady talked about the areas likely to be active into next year, including addressing the expiring provisions from the Republicans’ 2017 tax law and GOP efforts to roll back the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats’ signature health care and energy law that compels Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Akin — which took in $55 million in lobbying fees in 2023 — represents clients including the Texas Association for Home Care & Hospice, Texas-based health system Christus Health, PhRMA and the Trade Alliance for Health, a group whose members include Pfizer and Gilead.
| | | | LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today. | | | | | | | | | POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky, Kimberly Leonard and Brittany Gibson report that former President Donald Trump is escalating his rhetoric on vaccines. POLITICO reports on what the Biden administration is trying to Trump-proof, including health records related to abortion. NBC reports on signs that the ADHD drug shortage is letting up.
| | | | A message from PhRMA: A recent report from the Berkeley Research Group shows the 340B program is the second largest federal drug program for another year in a row. Despite its massive size, 340B has zero reporting requirements and zero patient protections to ensure the program is working as it should. Let’s fix 340B so it better helps patients. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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