The race to save IV fluid ahead of Milton

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

Oct 09, 2024 View in browser   By Chelsea Cirruzzo and Ben Leonard With Sophie Gardner Driving The Day Federal officials are urgently relocating IV fluid supplies from Florida due to the approaching hurricane. | David Goldman/AP PREVENTING FURTHER IV DISRUPTIONS — Federal officials have spent the past few days scrambling to move one factory’s inventory of IV fluid out of Florida as a powerful hurricane bears down on the state today. The rush to preserve German drug and device maker B. Braun’s supply of IV solution in Daytona Beach comes as hospitals warn that they’re facing shortages after Hurricane Helene damaged and closed another factory in North Carolina late last month. “They’re going to move some [supply], we’re going to assist in moving some and getting it to higher ground up the Eastern Seaboard so it can then be put into the supply chain when needed,” Dawn O’Connell, head of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, told Pulse. “But we couldn’t risk losing an additional part of our IV fluid supply in light of Baxter coming offline,” she said. Baxter International owns the North Carolina factory that closed due to damage from Helene. The factory, responsible for 60 percent of the nation’s IV fluid supply, has cut its fluid allocations to hospitals and is working with the FDA to receive a special license to import products from outside the U.S.  O’Connell told Pulse the agency also helped to build a temporary bridge to help access the facility. The bigger picture: Hospitals have reported substantial shortages of IV fluids, and the American Hospital Association has urged the FDA to declare a shortage, which would ease up certain rules to alleviate it. An HHS spokesperson told Pulse it hadn’t issued a shortage designation and has yet to see a need to, according to notes from a call among the FDA, ASPR and other federal officials on Friday. Instead, the officials are seeking other IV fluid sources like B. Braun’s factory, O’Connell said. Alli Longenhagen, director of corporate communications at B. Braun, told Pulse the company will close its Florida factory today, hoping to reopen Friday. “In partnership with ASPR, we are taking immediate steps to increase production of critical IV fluids at our plant in Irvine, CA, and will resume this plan at Daytona Beach following Hurricane Milton’s departure,” she wrote in an email. Other preparations: O’Connell said the agency has 450 employees in North Carolina working on the Helene response and another 100 stationed in Atlanta to prepare for Milton. The response includes disaster medical-assistance teams to provide clinical care in affected hospitals and medical supplies that could fill several trucks. The agency is also ready to activate a program that provides a free 30-day supply of prescription medication to uninsured people. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. JAMA has launched a new publication focused on artificial intelligence in health care. We’ll be reading! Send your tips, scoops and feedback to ccirruzzo@politico.com and bleonard@politico.com and follow along @ChelseaCirruzzo and @_BenLeonard_. AROUND THE AGENCIES Authorizing weight-loss drugs for Medicare coverage would significantly increase federal spending, with limited health savings, says a CBO report. | Scott Olson/Getty Images COVERING OBESITY DRUGS — If Congress authorized the coverage of anti-obesity drugs, federal spending would increase by about $35 billion over eight years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO report comes as policymakers mull how to pay for the pricey but popular drugs known as GLP-1s. Medicare is prohibited from covering weight-loss medications, though the program covers GLP-1s for other conditions, including diabetes. In the past year, lobbyists have poured money into efforts to get Congress to strike down the Medicare prohibition and for HHS to find a workaround. If the anti-obesity drugs were authorized in 2026 for Medicare beneficiaries with obesity, 12.5 million people would be eligible, and 2 percent would be expected to use the drugs in the first year, the CBO said. Key findings: The analysis found that, in addition to raising net federal spending, the direct federal cost to cover the drugs would increase from $1.6 billion in 2026 to $7.1 billion by 2034. “[T]otal savings from beneficiaries’ improved health would be small — less than $50 million in 2026 and rising to $1.0 billion in 2034,” the CBO said. The caveat: The CBO said it expected the drugs’ net costs under Medicare would decline beyond 2034 because of a drop in the drugs’ costs over time and a growth in savings. “Nevertheless, the policy would still increase federal spending between 2026 and 2044,” the analysis said. ‘SHARK’ CLEARS THE AIR ON HHS JOB — Mark Cuban for HHS secretary? No thanks, he told reporters Thursday, Ben reports. “No, I’m not [interested in HHS],” Cuban said at a roundtable hosted by the health policy research group KFF. “I just like to troll.” The billionaire and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank” said in a recent interview on Fox News that he might be interested in a high-level position — Securities and Exchange Commission chair or “maybe” leading HHS. But, on Tuesday, Cuban said he wouldn’t be interested in any position in the administration but suggested he could play a role as an outside adviser and “help whoever.” Why it matters: Cuban, who founded the online drugstore Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, has emerged as a vocal campaign ally for Vice President Kamala Harris. He’s advised her on how to approach pharmacy benefit managers, advocating for more transparency, which he said she was receptive to. PBMs work with insurers and large employers to negotiate drug prices. “In talking to the Harris campaign, if you introduce transparency, even to the point of requiring PBMs and insurers to publish their contracts publicly, then you start to introduce an efficient market,” Cuban said. He suggested that requiring more transparency would have a bigger impact on prescription drug costs than allowing Medicare to negotiate more drug prices. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have sought to increase transparency on how PBMs conduct business and have raised concerns about consolidation. The FTC has launched a probe into the market and filed a lawsuit against major PBMs. PBMs have said their negotiations with drugmakers help lead to lower prices for their customers and have blamed pharmaceutical companies for high drug prices. HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS RISE AGAIN — Family premiums for employer-based health insurance rose 7 percent this year, according to a KFF survey released today. This is the second consecutive year that premiums have risen, per the random, nationally representative survey of more than 2,100 employers. Among their findings are that most employers don’t cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, which have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. The firms that cover the drugs have imposed restrictions, including requiring workers to first meet with a dietitian or participate in another weight-loss program. A quarter of large firms said they cover in vitro fertilization and other fertility benefits. This comes as policymakers nationwide mull how to protect the procedure following an Alabama court ruling that deemed frozen embryos created via IVF to be people. Other key findings: — Workers who pay for an annual deductible for single coverage pay around $1,787 — similar to last year and up 8 percent from 2019. — About a third of the firms with at least 5,000 workers say they receive “most” of the rebates negotiated by a pharmacy benefit manager. Another third said they receive “some,” and 8 percent said “very little.” — Around half of the firms with at least 200 workers have increased mental health counseling resources through an employee assistance program or a commercial app like Headspace. Public Health WHAT HELPS COMBAT YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS? Nearly 40 percent of high school students reported having persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness last year, according to a CDC National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Sophie reports. But some measures, deemed by the CDC as “protective factors,” helped reduce mental health problems, according to the CDC’s National Youth Risk Behavior Survey released Tuesday. Key findings: Students who played on one or more sports teams had a lower prevalence of all mental health and suicide risk indicators, as did students who reported feeling very connected at school. Having attentive adults in the house, exercising for an hour or more at least five days a week and getting at least eight hours of sleep also lowered risks significantly. Why it matters: Youth mental health has been the subject of much concern in recent years from parents and lawmakers due to high rates of poor mental health, particularly among teen girls, during the height of the pandemic. Names in the News Kendrick B. Meek, a former Florida Democratic representative, is now on the board of directors for tech health care company OnMed. WHAT WE'RE READING POLITICO’s Ben Leonard reports that a health data-sharing dispute between IT health firm Particle Health and e-health records giant Epic has been resolved. POLITICO’s Ruth Reader reports on a multistate lawsuit against TikTok over youth mental health harms. NPR reports on the hundreds of companies, schools and labor organizations that have agreed to stock free naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing drug.   Follow us on Twitter Dan Goldberg @dancgoldberg Chelsea Cirruzzo @chelseacirruzzo Lauren Gardner @Gardner_LM Sophie Gardner @sophie_gardnerj 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 Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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