| | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard and Chelsea Cirruzzo | | Presented by |  | | | With Nick Niedzwiadek
| | |  Rep. Bob Latta is a contender to replace Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | THE COMMITTEE RACES TO WATCH — House Republicans are expected to vote this week on committee leadership for the new Congress, and those decisions will have significant ramifications for health care. The GOP Steering Committee — comprised of leadership and many of their allies — is slated to interview and select candidates to lead the committees this week. Here are the races we’re watching: Energy and Commerce Committee: Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) isn’t running for reelection, leaving a race between Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) to succeed her. Guthrie currently leads the panel’s health subcommittee, and Latta leads its communications and technology subcommittee. Guthrie has a significant fundraising edge and is considered the favorite, though both are popular among the conference and Latta has the seniority advantage. Guthrie has the backing of Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who are running to chair the panel’s health subcommittee, as is Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). As chair, Guthrie has signaled he’d prioritize Inflation Reduction Act oversight, bolstering drug and device supply chains, boosting transparency to lower drug prices, improving the opioid crisis response and “ensur[ing] the unborn are protected.” Latta has said he would prioritize lowering drug prices, investing in technology to bolster health outcomes, pushing policies to “protect moms, babies and the unborn,” modernizing the approval process for over-the-counter drugs and reducing “bureaucratic hurdles” to accessing care, including telehealth across state lines. He’s also told POLITICO he’s open to overhauling health agencies. Committee on Education and the Workforce: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) isn’t seeking another term atop the panel, and Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) and Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) are looking to fill her role atop the committee, with significant jurisdiction over employer health benefits. Walberg has the seniority advantage. Both have told POLITICO they support restoring Trump-era rules expanding access to association health plans, which made it easier for small businesses to team up to buy health insurance and avoid some regulation. Both want to safeguard a 50-year-old law known as ERISA that established minimum standards for most private health plans. Walberg is also pushing to expand telehealth benefits through his legislation that would permanently allow employers to offer telehealth as a tax-free benefit separate from their group health insurance plans. Owens wants to pass the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, which would enact transparency requirements for insurers, hospitals and pharmacy benefit managers. WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE. We’re pumped about the Willy Adames era for the San Francisco Giants. Send your tips, scoops and feedback to bleonard@politico.com and ccirruzzo@politico.com and follow along @_BenLeonard_ and @ChelseaCirruzzo.
| | | | REGISTER NOW: As the 118th Congress ends, major decisions loom, including healthcare appropriations. Key focus: site neutrality. Can aligning hospital and clinic costs cut federal spending, reflect physician costs, and lower patient expenses? Join policymakers and providers to discuss. | | | | | | | | | 
President-elect Donald Trump, shown here with his pick to be HHS head, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., continues to say he has "concepts of a plan" that would replace Obamacare. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | TRUMP ON ‘CONCEPTS OF A PLAN’ — “There are better answers” than Obamacare, which “stinks,” President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday, and reiterated his past claims he has a “concept of a plan” to replace it. “We have the biggest health care companies looking at it,” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker. “There are better answers. If we come up with a better answer, I would present that answer to Democrats and to everybody else.” Trump said that he didn’t know when the plan would come together. Trump has said for years there will be a health care plan but hasn’t put one forward.
| | A message from CVS Health: CVS Health is driving unprecedented savings by accelerating the use of new low-cost biosimilars. The employers, unions and state health plans we serve have already saved nearly $1 billion, and many patients now pay $0 out-of-pocket, fulfilling our commitment to deliver savings without compromising care. Learn more about how we’re supporting patients, clients and providers through this formulary change and innovations to come. | | | | | THE TIME IS NOW — It’s crunch time for Democrats and Republicans to come to a deal on a health care package to attach to government funding. The soft deadline for releasing bill text for a stopgap funding patch is usually the Sunday before the deadline. That means it would have to be out by Dec. 15 ahead of the Dec. 20 deadline. House Speaker Mike Johnson has targeted this week to release the legislation, leaving little time for lawmakers to agree on a health care package. Several other issues must still be resolved, including disaster-aid spending, which could complicate efforts on health care provisions. The state of play: Republicans and Democrats exchanged offers last week on a health care package. They aren’t far apart on some issues that might be easier to resolve — extending telehealth and hospital-at-home care rules and averting doctor pay cuts — but have significant differences to reconcile, including how to pay for it. Democrats propose regulations for pharmacy benefit managers — companies that negotiate drug prices for insurers or employers — that go beyond Republicans’ offer. Republicans propose repealing a Biden-era rule to increase nursing home staffing, a move they had already planned for next year. Democrats are also pushing to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act plan subsidies, but it’s not necessarily a line in the sand. Other issues being discussed include a potential compromise on legislation aimed at cracking down on Chinese biotechs. That didn’t hitch a ride on a negotiated version of a must-pass defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, released Saturday. If both sides agree to negotiate in good faith, a deal shouldn’t be that far away — in theory, at least. Republicans could have incentive to walk away when they will gain full control of Washington in weeks, while Democrats could force Republicans to come to a deal with a slim House majority next Congress.
| | ABOUT THAT PREP WORK — President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team still hasn’t sent policy advisers to work with agencies his administration will take control of, stalling preparations that could be instrumental in executing his agenda, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports. The Trump transition signed an agreement on Nov. 26, paving the way for those “landing teams” to begin work in the agencies. But before they can do that, the transition must submit its lists of people who will serve on the teams to the Biden administration — and they just began sending those names late this week. That puts Trump officials nearly a month behind their recent predecessors, who began what’s known as the “agency review” process — meeting with existing agency staff to be briefed on major policy issues and challenges. The delays could have a significant impact on health policy, where few of Trump’s picks, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Dr. Mehmet Oz, have government experience. “They’re really operating … at a severe disadvantage,” said Kathleen Sebelius, HHS Secretary under President Barack Obama. While the Trump transition declined to comment on the status of their landing teams, incoming White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the president-elect’s nominees in a statement, calling them “highly-qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to Make America Great Again."
| | | | A message from CVS Health:   | | | | | CASSIDY PROBES NIH — Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who will soon chair the committee overseeing the NIH, wants to review the results of an unpublished agency-backed study of the impacts of gender-affirming care on young people, POLITICO’s Erin Schumaker reports. The request comes as Cassidy hopes to overhaul the NIH more broadly by improving transparency and subjecting the agency to more oversight. In a letter to outgoing NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, Cassidy and five other GOP senators asked her to provide researchers’ past annual progress reports on an NIH-backed study of puberty-blocking treatments, which has come under fire from Republicans. At the center of their scrutiny is Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director at the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, who in October told The New York Times that researchers hadn’t published the study data because they were concerned it would be politicized. The unpublished data, according to the Times story, suggests puberty blockers don’t improve mental health for kids with gender dysphoria. ANY DAY NOW — Saturday marks two years since the Labor Department sent the White House its Covid-19 safety standard for health care settings, Nick reports. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard has been all but dead for quite some time, even if the Biden administration wouldn’t admit it. But it is now the second-oldest policy pending before the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — behind a Treasury proposal aimed at blocking imported goods produced with forced labor that’s languished since May 2021. But a month ago, OSHA also sent a much more expansive proposal to OIRA that would extend to all infectious disease risks in hospitals, nursing homes and other care centers. That idea has kicked around since at least the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency but was put on ice during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term. TRANSPARENCY UNDER TRUMP — Charlie Katebi, a top health official at the Trump-blessed America First Policy Institute, said he hopes the new administration will be tougher on enforcing hospital price-transparency rules. “Agencies don’t get to just throw up their hands … they have to be enforced,” Katebi said at a briefing Friday hosted by the ERISA Industry Committee, though he said he doesn’t have specific insights into what the agency may do. “Agencies have all sorts of tools available.” CMS has failed to verify that hospitals adhere to Trump-era regulations mandating complete and accurate public price disclosures, a government watchdog said in a report released in October. HHS concurred with the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations to do more and said CMS may assess potential inaccuracies and incompleteness.
| | Martha Santana-Chin has been appointed the next CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan. She was previously at Health Net. Sarah Alspach is now chief communications officer and executive vice president at BIO. She was previously at Bluebird Bio.
| | | POLITICO’s Ruth Reader reports on Elon Musk getting behind a last-ditch attempt to pass the Kids Online Safety Act. Fierce Healthcare reports on how Trump could roll back Biden’s health regulations.
| | | | Billions in spending. Critical foreign aid. Immigration reform. The final weeks of 2024 could bring major policy changes. Inside Congress provides daily insights into how Congressional leaders are navigating these high-stakes issues. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | A message from CVS Health: CVS Health is reimagining what is possible in the biosimilars landscape, driving the market towards lower-cost, clinically appropriate alternatives. Our bold biosimilar strategy continues to deliver unprecedented savings without compromising care, and the employers, unions and state health plans we serve have already saved nearly $1 billion from biosimilar adoption, with many patients now paying $0 out-of-pocket.
Learn more about how we are helping patients and clients save by accelerating biosimilar adoption across the industry. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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