Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is, despite the dreary gray skies hovering over the Pharmalot campus. We are doing our best to maintain sunny spirits, though, because once again, we recall some helpful wisdom from the Morning Mayor, who taught us that “every new day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.” To celebrate the notion, we are brewing still more cups of stimulation and inviting you to join us. Our choice today is tiramisu. Sweets for the sweet, as we like to tell Mrs. Pharmalot. Meanwhile, here are a few items of interest. Hope you have a meaningful and productive day and, of course, do stay in touch. …
CVS Health is exploring options that could include a breakup of the company to separate its retail and insurance units, as the struggling health care services company looks to turn around its fortunes amid pressure from investors, Reuters reports. CVS has been discussing various options — including how such a split would work — with its financial advisers in recent weeks. CVS is also discussing whether its pharmacy benefits manager unit, which manages drug benefits for health plans, should be housed within the retail unit or under insurance, if it were to proceed with a separation that could result in two publicly traded companies. Such a move would effectively unwind CVS’s landmark $70 billion takeover of health care insurer Aetna in 2017 and come as CVS attempts to navigate one of the most challenging periods in its six-decade history. Meanwhile, CVS is laying off 2,900 employees, according to CT Insider.
A series of state and federal lawsuits challenging coverage exclusions for obesity drugs and procedures are testing the bounds of what qualifies as a “disability” under discrimination laws as more workers seek to access the expensive treatments, Bloomberg Law explains. Public school district employee Rebecca Holland sued Elevance Health on Sept. 20 over the insurance company’s exclusion of obesity treatments under the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust Plan. The fully insured plan does not cover GLP-1 weight loss drugs, and limits bariatric surgery to individuals diagnosed with “severe obesity” after a five-year waiting period, according to the lawsuit. This is one of a new line of cases filed against insurers arguing that the exclusions amount to disability discrimination under anti-bias laws like Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Lawyers are testing the law in several ways through cases against fully insured and self-insured plans, private and public companies, and under both federal and state laws.
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