You’re reading the web edition of D.C. Diagnosis, STAT’s twice-weekly newsletter about the politics and policy of health and medicine. Sign up here to receive it in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Hello and happy Tuesday! Our intrepid First Opinion editor Torie Bosch is back, and she has some big ideas for the section in the coming months. Be sure to get in touch with her, and continue sending news, tips and takes to [email protected].
DNC kicks off with reproductive rights rallying
The Democratic National Convention is underway in Chicago. President Biden headlined the first night on Monday with a speech touting that “we finally beat Big Pharma” with Medicare drug price negotiation. Vice President Harris is slated to speak Thursday, while running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will take the stage Wednesday night.
The first hours of prime-time speeches set the tone for Democrats to blast GOP attacks on abortion rights across the country. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Harris “will restore abortion rights nationwide,” echoing several lawmakers who rallied around the vice president’s record. Amanda Zurawski from Texas, a previous Biden guest at the State of the Union, and Kaitlyn Joshua described how restrictions after the overturning of Roe v. Wade jeopardized their health and pregnancies. A third woman, Hadley Duvall, shared her experience of miscarrying after becoming pregnant following sexual abuse by her stepfather. Biden said in his speech that former President Trump “will do everything to ban abortion nationwide,” though Trump himself has said he wants to leave the issue to states.
Biden also touted having the lowest uninsured rate in history. The U.S. hit a record low in 2023, though the rate crept upward early this year. He reiterated his drug pricing policies and said that Harris and Walz will continue taking on the industry by expanding cost-sharing protections for medications beyond Medicare — which is, ironically, a policy the pharmaceutical industry likes very much.
ALS advocates Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya spoke as well, arguing that Harris “knows the promise of science” given her mother’s background as a breast cancer researcher and celebrating research funding that Biden signed into law. More on their story from my colleague Lev Facher.
While Republicans didn’t dwell too much on health care during their convention last month, Democrats have set the stage to tout Biden’s health wins — like the negotiated drug prices revealed last week — and where a future Harris administration would pick up the mantle, from more discounted drugs to less medical debt. Check out what else to expect this week.
Democrats’ demure health policy agenda
The Democrats’ platform is six times longer than Republicans, but on health policy it mostly includes a lot of things we’ve all seen before.
Aside from managing to get states to cooperate with canceling medical debt, Democrats are largely pitching marginal changes to policies they’ve already passed, like drug pricing reform and the Affordable Care Act. They’re also trying to bring back abortion protections in Roe v. Wade.
Their biggest problem is that many of these ideas would require help from Congress, an institution that failed to put the policies into place the first time around the laws were passed (or courts have complicated matters). And unless Democrats pull off a blowout victory in Congress, they’re going to have difficulty implementing much of this agenda at all even if they can keep the White House.
The ACA architect turned investment banker fighting merger scrutiny
Peter Orszag was instrumental in crafting the Affordable Care Act. Now, he wants federal antitrust authorities to ease up on their sharp scrutiny of health care transactions that he acknowledges the law has encouraged — and that make a lot of money for his investment bank, STAT’s Bob Herman writes.
The Lazard CEO has lamented, a few times this year, how Biden administration antitrust reviewers are increasingly thwarting or stalling deals that have proliferated since the law went into effect in 2010. Many of those are “vertical integration” mergers that Orszag and the companies argue will hasten lower-cost, higher quality health care services.
Others are more skeptical, arguing that we haven’t seen that in practice — and in fact after a number of high-profile vertical deals, saw higher prices. More from Bob on Orzsag’s next chapter and the antitrust battle.
Three drugs account for half of savings from Medicare negotiation
Enbrel, Stelara, and Eliquis account for more than half of the savings from the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiation, according to a report by Brookings Institution’s Center on Health Policy.
The Biden administration announced last week that if Medicare negotiation had been in place in 2023, the government would’ve saved $6 billion. Brookings’ research came to a similar conclusion, though it noted that actual savings are lower. For example, drugs chosen for negotiation are exempt from the 10% to 20% discounts that they otherwise would be subject to in Medicare Part D. The $6 billion figure doesn’t account for those lost discounts.
But both the administration’s and Brookings’ savings estimates account for the rebates that insurers were already negotiating, according to John Wilkerson. They both found that Medicare negotiated prices that are 22% lower than what insurers were negotiating – insurers can negotiate prices down from Medicare-negotiated levels in at least some instances.
The biggest price concessions were obtained from drugs that were not already heavily rebated before Medicare negotiation.
What we’re reading
Study exposes the dangerous ‘hidden’ mental burden of cancer on patients’ spouse, STAT
Harris isn’t pushing Medicare for All anymore. Progressives say that’s OK, Politico
Rick Doblin, ‘unleashed,’ blasts FDA over Lykos drug rejection and turns to global push for MDMA therapy, STAT
How the world sleepwalked into the global mpox emergency, Bloomberg