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With Rachel Roubein, Daniel Lippman
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Quick Fix
— On the heels of the Affordable Care Act’s latest court victory, a slim majority of voters back the law, new polling finds.
— An employer coalition is pressing lawmakers for drug pricing reform, after the FDA approved an expensive new Alzheimer’s drug.
— The WHO is moving to set up vaccine manufacturing in South Africa, even as health groups press world leaders and pharmaceutical companies for more.
WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE — Our reading list just keeps getting longer. Send tips and book recommendations to [email protected] and [email protected].
Driving the day
VOTERS STILL SPLIT ON OBAMACARE AFTER COURT VICTORY — More than a third of U.S. voters still oppose the Affordable Care Act, after the law survived its third (and likely final) Supreme Court challenge last week, according to new Morning Consult/POLITICO polling.
Roughly 54 percent of voters polled this weekend said they strongly or somewhat approve of the sweeping health care law, but that belies a deep polarization: Almost three-fourths of Republicans said they disapprove.
Why it matters: In the wake of this latest court victory, the debate surrounding the ACA is shifting from whether the law will remain on the books to how Obamacare could evolve and expand. On that front, voters are just as split, with only 32 percent saying it should be broadened and 18 percent saying it should be kept as-is (and almost a quarter still calling for repeal), writes Morning Consult’s Gaby Galvin.
Congressional Democrats are pressing to make ACA subsidies permanent via the next pandemic relief package but other, more extensive reforms are still up for debate. President Joe Biden has promised to strengthen the law, but his next steps are also unclear.
EMPLOYERS RAIL AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S DRUG’S PRICE — FDA’s approval of Biogen’s Aduhelm and its “astronomical” $56,000 price tag “demonstrate the profound need for substantial reforms to how the United States approves and prices prescription drugs,” EmployersRX, a coalition of employers that sponsor insurance benefits, wrote in a letter to congressional leaders sent Monday.
“Federal taxpayers and private purchasers will find themselves paying billions of dollars for a drug which has until 2030 to demonstrate that it even works,” said the coalition, now just the latest of a growing number of Aduhelm critics.
ICYMI: SCHUMER BACKS COVERING VISION, DENTAL UNDER MEDICARE — In a sign of intraparty debates to come, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he is working with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stick a plan for Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing in the next multitrillion-dollar relief package, writing Monday that current coverage gaps are a “serious problem.”
The broadened coverage is projected to cost $350 billion over 10 years and has long been on Sanders’ wish list but could stoke divides with moderate Senate Democrats hesitant to add a costly plan to the already massive new package. Those same moderates are unlikely to back sweeping drug pricing reforms, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 3, that could offset these costs.
In Congress
NEW BILL AIMS TO MAKE PANDEMIC TELEHEALTH BENEFITS PERMANENT — Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) are introducing legislation today to make it easier for older adults to access telehealth services. The bill, shared first with PULSE, would codify new telehealth flexibilities for Medicare beneficiaries granted during the pandemic.
Providers would be allowed to deliver telehealth services to patients in their homes regardless of what part of the country they live in, and would permanently allow Medicare to pay for doctor’s visits via audio-only phone calls, rather than requiring a video component for every call.
Around the Agencies
CMS GETS BALL ROLLING ON STATE MARKETPLACE SUPPORT — The agency on Monday opened applications for $20 million in grants for states to upgrade their ACA enrollment websites.
The funding, allotted by the Covid rescue bill Biden signed, lets the government dole out up to 21 grants to different state-based marketplaces, CMS said. Those platforms collectively enrolled more than 3.8 million people so far this year. Applications are due on July 20 and CMS will issue grants in early September.
Around the World
BIOVAC, WHO STAND UP SOUTH AFRICAN VACCINE HUB — The World Health Organization is working with South African manufacturer Biovac and regional health groups to set up the groups’ first technology transfer hub for messenger RNA vaccines.
The hub will train scientists and establish industrial-scale facilities to produce messenger RNA products like coronavirus vaccines. But while global health organizations applauded the move, they urged pharmaceutical giants and world leaders to go a step further and share vaccine technology and funding.
“Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech must immediately share their mRNA technology with the hub so that many more mRNA vaccines can be produced independently by manufacturers in South Africa and more broadly on the African continent, as soon as possible,” Médecins Sans Frontières’ Kate Stegmann said in a statement.
And Public Citizen Director Peter Maybarduk said world leaders including Biden “should offer funding, technical capacity and political support to share vaccine recipes and accelerate WHO’s plans” to make vaccines against the coronavirus and other pathogens shots and future vaccines more widely available.
U.S. SCRAPS PLAN TO SEND ASTRAZENECA DOSES ABROAD — The Biden administration is excluding AstraZeneca shots from plans to share coronavirus vaccines worldwide while it waits for authorities to clear millions of doses made at a Maryland facility for use.
The Monday announcement marks a reversal from officials’ original plan to send 60 million AstraZeneca shots — which have not yet been authorized for use in the U.S. — to other countries, Carmen Paun reports. But regulators are still reviewing whether doses produced at the Baltimore Emergent BioSolutions plant are safe to send abroad. In the meantime, the administration has built up a supply from other manufacturers.
Names in the News
Anthony Theissen has been promoted to be health policy adviser for Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). He most recently was a health legislative aide for Carper.
Bryan Wells is now a director at Stanton Park Group. He most recently was senior health policy director for former Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kans.).
What We're Reading
Patients, doctors and former employees have accused Modern Vascular of aggressively pursuing patients and pushing profit-driven medical decisions like unnecessary amputations, Ike Swetlitz reports in a deep dive for Searchlight New Mexico.
Colorectal cancer rates are rising across America, with young Black men dying at higher rates than other groups. Stat News’ Nicholas St. Fleur documents the national trends and the diseases’ impact on his family and heroes.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened Monday to jail citizens who refuse the Covid-19 shot, as the country struggles with low vaccination rates and one of the region’s worst outbreaks, Reuters reported.
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