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Hello and Happy Tuesday! Our intrepid First Opinion Editor, Tory Bosch, is back. The Big Idea Please send her any updates, tips or comments you have about this section over the coming months. [email protected].
Democratic National Convention kicks off with reproductive rights rally
The Democratic National Convention is underway in Chicago. President Biden gave a speech on the first night of the convention on Monday touting that he had “finally beaten Big Pharma” in Medicare drug price negotiations. Vice President Harris is scheduled to speak on Thursday, and vice presidential running mate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, is scheduled to take the stage on Wednesday night.
The first few hours of the primetime speech set the tone for Democrats to blast Republican attacks on abortion rights across the country. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined several lawmakers in supporting Vice President Harris’ record, saying, “Harris will restore abortion rights across the country.” Amanda Zulawski Caitlin Joshua, a Texas woman who was previously Biden’s guest at the State of the Union, spoke of how restrictions imposed after Roe v. Wade put her health and pregnancy at risk. A third woman, Hadley Duvall, spoke of her experience of becoming pregnant after being sexually abused by her stepfather, but then miscarrying. Biden said in his speech that former President Trump “would do everything in his power to ban abortion across the country,” but Trump himself has said he wants to leave the issue up to the states.
Biden also claimed that the uninsured rate is at an all-time low. Record low In 2023, Elevated Earlier this year, Harris reiterated her drug pricing policies, saying she and Walz would continue to fight the industry by expanding cost-sharing protections for drugs beyond Medicare — a policy that, ironically, the pharmaceutical industry very much likes.
ALS advocates Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrebaya also spoke, arguing that Harris “understands the potential of science” because her mother was a breast cancer researcher, and praising Biden’s research funding legislation. My colleague Reb Fatcher has more on their stories.
While Republicans didn’t address health care in much detail at last month’s convention, Democrats were primed to tout Biden’s health victories, like the drug price negotiations unveiled last week, and areas a future Harris administration will inherit, from better drug discounts to reducing medical debt. Here’s what else to expect this week.
Democrats’ Modest Health Care Agenda
The Democratic platform is six times longer than the Republican one, but when it comes to health care, it contains most of the stuff we’ve seen before.
Besides getting states to work together to forgive medical debt, Democrats are mostly proposing minor changes to policies already passed, like drug pricing reform and the Affordable Care Act, and they also want to restore abortion protections from Roe v. Wade.
Their biggest problem is that many of these ideas require the support of Congress, an institution that failed to implement the policies when they were first passed into law (or the courts have complicated the issue), and unless Democrats have a majority in Congress, much of this policy will be hard to enact, even if they keep the White House.
ACA architect turned investment banker fights merger review
Peter Orszag helped write Obamacare, and now, according to STAT’s Bob Herman, he’s urging federal antitrust regulators to ease up on the health insurance transactions that he acknowledges Obamacare has facilitated and that have generated huge profits for his investment bank.
Lazard’s CEO has lamented several times this year that Biden administration antitrust examiners are increasingly blocking or delaying deals that have proliferated since the law was enacted in 2010, many of which are “vertically integrated” mergers that Orszag and the companies argue will promote lower-cost, higher-quality health care services.
Others are more skeptical and claim they have not seen anything of the sort in practice. Indeed, after several high-profile vertical deals, Higher Price. More from Bob about Orszag’s next chapter and antitrust battle.
Half of Medicare negotiated savings come from three drugs
Enbrel, Stelara and Eliquis account for more than half of the savings among the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations. A report by the Brookings Institution’s Health Policy Center.
The Biden administration announced last week that the government would have saved $6 billion if Medicare negotiations had taken place in 2023. A Brookings Institution study reached a similar conclusion but noted that the actual savings would be much smaller. For example, drugs selected for negotiation are exempt from the 10% to 20% discounts that would otherwise be available under Medicare Part D. The $6 billion figure doesn’t include the loss of those discounts.
But the administration’s and Brookings’ savings estimates take into account discounts that insurers had already negotiated, according to John Wilkerson. Both found that Medicare’s negotiated prices were 22% lower than the prices insurers had negotiated. Insurers, at least in some cases, were able to negotiate lower prices than Medicare had negotiated.
The biggest price concessions came from drugs that had not yet been deeply discounted before the Medicare negotiations.
What we’re reading
Study reveals dangerous ‘hidden’ psychological toll on spouses of cancer patients, STAT
Harris is no longer pushing for Medicare for All, and progressives say that’s fine. Politico
Rick Doblin “Unleashed” Slams FDA Rejection of Lycos Drug, Looks at Global Push for MDMA Therapy, STAT
How the world fell into a global MPOX emergency Bloomberg
