Victoria Colliver
MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLANS PROLIFERATE — The average Medicare beneficiary will have 24 Medicare Advantage plans offered by seven different insurers to choose from during the 2019 open-enrollment period that kicked off Monday, according to an analysis of filings by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Altogether, 2,734 private Medicare plans will be sold across the country – an increase of 417 plans compared to 2018. In addition, there are 14 new entrants to the Medicare Advantage market, while five insurers exited.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma touted the increased competition and low premiums available to Medicare beneficiaries in a speech to America’s Health Insurance Plans on Tuesday morning. In particular, she cited the administration’s regulatory changes offering additional flexibility around what supplemental benefits insurers can provide to members as a potential boon for beneficiaries. Verma mentioned transportation, meal delivery and adult day care as possible new benefits.
“This is one of the most significant changes made to the Medicare program, and will have a major impact on improving health outcomes for Medicare Advantage patients,” Verma said.
While we’re on the topic of Medicare Advantage: Devoted Health — a startup insurer with ties to a bevy of tech heavyweights including former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park — announced Tuesday it’s raised $300 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other investors. Devoted has started offering Medicare plans in eight Florida counties, and expansion plans are already in the works.
Other prominent figures involved with the company include Bob Kocher, a former top Obama administration official and partner at venture capital firm Venrock, DJ Patil, the former chief data scientist at the White House, and Bill Frist, the former GOP Senate majority leader. Pros can read more from our eHealth editor Arthur Allen here.
IT'S WEDNESDAY PULSE — Where your host from Oakland, Calif. is gearing up for what will hopefully be the Dubs’ fourth NBA championship in five years (no haters please). San Francisco can never replace the “Roaracle” Arena. Cheer up: your regular host, Dan Diamond, will be back at the helm for tomorrow’s Pulse.
PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS A RED WAVE IS COMING ON ELECTION DAY. Is he right, or will the tide turn blue? Compete against the nation’s top political minds in the POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge, by correctly picking the winning candidates in some of the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial races in the country. Win awesome prizes and eternal bragging rights. Sign up today! Visit politico.com/playbookelectionchallenge to play.
POLITICO IS PARTNERING WITH THE MILKEN INSTITUTE to bring a special edition of the POLITICO Pulse newsletter to the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. Written by Dan Diamond, the newsletter will take readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators as they tackle today’s most pressing health challenges. The newsletter will run Oct. 23-24. Sign up today to begin receiving exclusive coverage on Day One of the summit.
NAACOS RELEASES NEW SURVEY AS ACO RULE COMMENTS CLOSE: About 60 percent of accountable care organizations responding to a survey from the National Association of ACOs indicated they likely wouldn’t have signed up for the Medicare Shared Savings Program if it was set up the way CMS has proposed overhauling the program.
Of the 127 unique ACOs participating in the survey, roughly 61 percent opposed the rule, 27 percent favored it and 12 percent said they were neutral. Some of the respondents’ biggest concerns, reflected in NAACOS’ comment on the proposal, include the proposal to reduce the amount of shared savings ACOs receive at the beginning and decrease the length of time ACOs can go without shouldering financial risk. (The NAACOS survey represented 23 percent of ACOs in the MSSP program.)
Comments closed Tuesday on the proposed rule, which the Trump administration has said provides a better incentive for ACOs to save money and produce better outcomes.
** A message from PhRMA: This week, PhRMA members announced their commitment to providing more transparency about medicine costs. Soon, our member companies’ DTC television advertisements will direct patients to information about medicine costs, including the list price of the medicine, out-of-pocket costs or other context about the potential cost of the medicine and available financial assistance. Learn more. **
FIRST IN PULSE: Dems warn about GOP health cuts. Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee are releasing a new report Wednesday calculating the impact of the GOP tax bill on the national debt and warning that Republicans may attempt deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act’s market subsidies to plug the hole. A copy of the report was shared with POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein.
Citing House Republicans’ 2019 budget resolution, which slashes hundreds of billions of dollars from social safety net programs over a decade, the JEC report estimates that each of the 130 million people who depend on those programs would lose an average of $1,500 per year in services and tax credits should the cuts take effect. The report breaks down the potential impact by state, finding that West Virginia, New Mexico and Arkansas would be among the hardest hit.
ON TAP TODAY
HHS Secretary to appear with FLOTUS. Alex Azar and Melania Trump will visit Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia today as part of the first lady’s “Be Best Campaign.” They’ll be meeting with families affected by neonatal abstinence syndrome and staff of university’s maternal addiction, treatment, education and research program.
Gun violence workshop. The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice is hosting a workshop today and tomorrow in D.C. to explore health systems’ roles in preventing firearm injuries and fatalities. Among the systems featured: Kaiser Permanente, which recently committed $2 million to research firearm injury prevention. More details on the event here. To join the webcast, go here.
CYBERSECURITY
FDA AND DHS PLAN TO BEEF UP MEDICAL DEVICE SECURITY — The FDA and the Department of Homeland Security signed an agreement Tuesday to make sure medical devices – increasingly a target for hackers – are better protected from digital threats.
Under the agreement, DHS's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center will be responsible for coordinating and disseminating information among FDA, medical device manufacturers, researchers, and others. In turn, the FDA will provide expert advice about device vulnerabilities and potential threats to public health. More for Pros from POLITICO’s Darius Tahir here.
PUBLIC HEALTH
NEW CDC REPORTS FINDS DROP IN BIRTH RATES — The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics today released a new report that found some significant drops in births over the past decade. The report found total fertility rates (basically the estimated number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes) fell 12 percent in rural regions, 16 percent in small or medium metro areas and 18 percent in large metro counties from 20017 to 2017.
Increases in the mean age of mothers for their first baby was found in all regions, and this increase along with declines in fertility rates were noted across different races and ethnicities. Read the report here.
OPEN-SOURCE GLOBAL DISEASE TRACKER UNVEILED — The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation announced the "soft launch" of a new tool called IDseq – an open source, cloud-based platform that would allow scientists and health workers anywhere in the world to detect and track emerging infectious diseases before they turn into epidemics.
The tool began as a research project at the UC San Francisco lab of Dr. Joseph DeRisi, co-president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. From DeRisi, who made the announcement Tuesday at the Gates Grand Challenges meeting in Berlin, Germany: "Pathogens don't respect geographic borders."
It's all part of the Zuckerberg-Chan pledge: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, in 2016 pledged to invest $3 billion over the next decade to fight disease, plus $600 million to establish the Biohub research center. Read a more detailed explanation about what IDseq could do here in The Atlantic.
MEDICAID
Mary Mayhew will recuse from Maine-related matters. The new directorof Medicaid and CHIP won’t get involved in her old department’s pending requests to impose work requirements and expand Medicaid, a CMS spokesperson emailed reporters on Tuesday night.
"As she left her employment with the state over a year ago, Director Mayhew does not have a recusal obligation under law or regulation with regard to her work in the state of Maine," the CMS spokesperson wote. "However, in order to avoid even the appearance of any conflict of interest or undue influence, Director Mayhew is recusing herself from participation in any particular matters in which Maine is a party or represents a party, including its pending State Plan Amendment."
Mayhew served as health commissioner in Maine between 2011 and 2017, working under Gov. Paul LePage to tighten Medicaid eligibility and rein in spending. She also supported LePage as he resisted efforts to expand Medicaid, including LePage’s direction that CMS disregard the state’s request.
AROUND THE NATION
Minnesota AG sues insulin makers alleging price-gouging. Attorney General Lori Swanson is suing Eli Lilly, Sanofi-Aventis and Novo Nordisk, arguing the companies have engaged in a “scheme” to raise the prices of their drugs so they can offer better rebates to pharmacy benefits managers. “In most industries competitor compete with one another to offer the lowest prices,” Swanson said. In this case, companies are “competing to offer the highest price,” she said. More from the Minneapolis Star Tribune here.
The rising cost of insulin has long attracted attention in Congress and in state governments. Attorneys general in Washington State and New Mexico began probing Eli Lilly over the pricing of its products in 2017. It followed a class-action lawsuit that accused Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk of conspiring to drive up the cost of insulin. In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings asked the Justice Department and FTC to investigate potential collusion among drug companies regarding insulin.
Michigan exploring outcomes-based drug deals in Medicaid. The state has sent a supplement state plan amendment to CMS requesting to enter into outcomes-based contracts with drug manufacturers in Medicaid. The idea would be to negotiate supplemental rebates with drug companies, above the mandatory discounts manufacturers must already give Medicaid programs, that would be based on how well a drug works for a patient. The state said it doesn’t have particular drugs or conditions in mind yet and is waiting to hear back from CMS. In June, CMS backed Oklahoma’s request to enter into similar deals with drug manufacturers.
REPORT WATCH
GOP incumbents and pre-existing conditions. The Center for American Progress Action Fund looked at how many times Republican members of Congress voted to repeal Obamacare and compared that with the estimated number of non-elderly residents in their districts with pre-existing conditions. To see who the liberal think tank describes as the three dozen worst on protecting people from being discriminated against based on their age, health or disability status, check out the analysis here.
NAMES IN THE NEWS
New Guttmacher comms head. The Guttmacher Institute has named Lauren Cross as its national communications manager. Cross previously served as the federal advocacy press officer at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
WHAT WE'RE READING
New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz writes about how even the GOP’s most popular ideas about health care are politically toxic. More.
UC San Francisco paid $150,000 to resolve a sexual harassment case against a high-profile anti-tobacco research professor. More from STAT’s Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus.
BuzzFeed’s Theresa Tamkins looks at that “mysterious illness” that‘s affecting dozens of children in 22 states so far. More.
Check out Kaiser Health News’ latest tool to track which members of Congress receive the most in contributions from drugmakers. Via KHN’s Elizabeth Lucas and Sydney Lupkin. More.
** A message from PhRMA: This week, PhRMA members announced their commitment to providing more transparency about medicine costs. Soon, our member companies’ DTC television advertisements will direct patients to information about medicine costs, including the list price of the medicine, out-of-pocket costs or other context about the potential cost of the medicine and available financial assistance. The biopharmaceutical industry will also launch a new platform that will provide patients, caregivers and providers with cost and financial assistance information for brand-name medicines, as well as other patient support resources. It’s our mission to find lifesaving treatments. It’s our responsibility to help patients access them. Learn more. **
Find the article here.
