Lawmakers who had hoped to address price transparency and lower drug costs instead negotiated a smaller health package after negotiations broke down again amid a broader stalemate over government funding. There is.
They now exclude most of the previously developed healthcare proposals, including codifying and strengthening price transparency rules, cracking down on pharmacy benefit manager practices, limiting some off-campus billing, and more. We are working on a simplified agreement that could hospital clinic.
Multiple lobbyists said the smaller bill currently includes potential funding for community health centers, offsetting some of the planned Medicare cuts for doctors, and deferring planned cuts to hospitals that provide medical services. In addition, it is likely to focus on an expansionary policy package. Part of the low income group.
Funding for other big-ticket items may still be included, but the differences are far from resolved. This could include reauthorizing funding for pandemic and emergency response authorities, opioid programs, and community health centers.
The dispute comes against the backdrop of a larger dispute over the level of government spending. Appropriators are poised to seek funding for the 2024 fiscal year for the fourth time, threatening billions of dollars in across-the-board spending cuts if they fail to pass a full-year funding bill by April 30. There is a possibility that it will accelerate.
The health debate was also elevated to House and Senate leadership after committee leaders failed to reach agreement. But it's unclear whether the policy will maintain enough support to pass a new short-term spending bill.
Since it began, the debate has been plagued by various disputes between the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, and within both parties. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), multiple sources said. The rift between the two countries is one of the key challenges, with disagreements over regulations. His PBM in commercial markets, price transparency, pandemic reauthorization.
The Senate's Pharmacy Benefit Management bill would prevent PBMs that manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance plans from pocketing rebates they negotiate with drug companies in the commercial market. Other House and Senate bills would only prohibit Medicare and Medicaid implementation.
Mr. Rogers does not want to intervene in business strategy in commercial markets. Lobbyists say Mr. Cassidy also wants to make the inclusion of pandemic reauthorization a condition of support for the opioid reauthorization bill.
“Mr. Cassidy is committed to negotiating the strongest policy possible to pass the House and Senate,” the spokesperson said.
A number of House Democrats, led by Ranking Member Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) of the Ways and Means Committee, have also argued that certain drug exchanges between off-campus hospital clinics and independent physician clinics under Medicare It seeks to repeal language establishing transparency and equity in payments. .
And Senate HELP Chairman Bernie Sanders (R-Vt.) is seeking billions more in funding for community health centers than included in the bipartisan House bill.
Funding for the first government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, expires on March 1. President Joe Biden will summon four congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday after the two sides failed to reach an agreement Sunday night.
This report first appeared on CQ.com.
Sandhya Raman and Jessie Hellmann contributed.
