From Kaiser Health News – Latest Stories:
Weight loss gadgets: They provide data to help consumers reach diet goals, but it still won’t be easy
You may have seen the ads that promise weight loss and better health – phone apps, rings and other devices – by providing you with data on how your body reacts to food, exercise and sleep. Is this information enough to help consumers achieve their goals? (Hannah Norman,
13/11
)
5 Things to Know About Colorado’s Psychedelics Ballot Initiative
The good, the bad and the unknown about the Centennial State’s proposal to decriminalize and regulate magic mushrooms and plant-based psychedelics. (Markian Hawryluk and Matt Volz,
13/11
)
Will Covid Spike Again This Fall? 6 tips to help you stay safe
Recent research suggests that the covid virus mutates to better avoid people’s immune system. It may soon avoid monoclonal antibodies used to treat covid. KHN examines what public health authorities believe is on the horizon and how best to combat the disease. (Céline Gounder,
SHARPEN YOUR FANGS IN THE HALLOWEEN HAIKU CONTEST!
13/11
)
Lawsuit by KHN Asks Government to Release Medicare Advantage Audits
Summaries Of The News:
The lawsuit was filed three years ago to find out about large overcharges from the popular health plans detailed in audits that the government refused to make public. (Fred Schulte,
13/11
)
KHN’s ‘What health?’: Finally fixing the ‘family bug’
The Biden administration has decided to try to fix the so-called “family flaw” in the Affordable Care Act without a bill from Congress. The provision has prevented workers’ families from getting subsidized coverage if an employer’s offer is unaffordable. Meanwhile, Medicare’s open enrollment period begins Oct. 15, and private Medicare Advantage plans are poised to cover more than half of Medicare’s 65 million enrollees. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read. (
13/11
)
Political cartoon: “Don’t forget to stretch”
Kaiser Health News offers a new look at developments in health policy with “Political Cartoon: ‘Don’t Forget to Stretch'” by Dave Coverly.
Here is today’s health policy haiku:
Dracula’s worst fear:
Anemia! Donate Now –
so send us your rhymes!
If you have a health policy haiku to share, please contact us and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the 5-7-5 syllable format. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story from KHN.
Opinions expressed in haikus and comics are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of KHN or KFF.
Biden signs order today to help reduce Rx costs: official
Reuters, citing a White House official, said the order requires the Department of Health and Human Services to outline within 90 days how it will use new models of care and payment to cut drug costs.
Reuters:
Biden signs order seeking new prescription drug cost savings – official
President Joe Biden will sign an order on Friday pressuring federal officials to reduce prescription drug costs during a pre-election trip designed to promote the Democrat’s health care policies, an official said. The order requires the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to outline within 90 days how it will use new models of care and payment to cut drug costs, according to the White House official, who declined to be identified as previewing the president’s action. (Hunnicutt, 10/14)
AP:
Biden pushes lower prescription drug costs in midterm push
President Joe Biden is set to highlight his administration’s efforts to reduce prescription drug costs on Friday as part of his three-state western tour this week as he confronts a sobering inflation report in the waning weeks before the midterm elections. (Lang, 10/14)
More on Medicare drug prices and payments —
Shares:
The Biden administration’s next challenge: paying for discount drug failures
Four months after losing a high-profile dispute at the Supreme Court, the Biden administration has yet to figure out how it will reimburse hospitals for as much as $10 billion in illegal cuts to Medicare outpatient drug payments. (Goldman, 10/14)
Shares:
Democrats’ new Medicare negotiation bill attempts to marry drug prices to value
The Democrats’ new law that gives Medicare the authority to negotiate some drug prices attempts to do something critics say is often missing in today’s market: Link what the government pays to the value of treatments. (Owens, 10/14)
KHN:
Lawsuit by KHN Asks Government to Release Medicare Advantage Audits
Federal health officials have agreed to make public 90 audits of private Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that are expected to reveal hundreds of millions of dollars in government overcharges. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services agreed to release the records to settle a lawsuit filed by Kaiser Health News against the agency in September 2019 under the Freedom of Information Act. (Schulte, 10/14)
In other news from the Biden administration –
Fox News:
Biden expands access to taxpayer-funded ‘gender-affirming care’ for federal employees
The Biden administration is expanding the range of taxpayer-funded “gender-affirming” health care services available to federal employees, starting in 2023, according to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) explanation of federal benefits released in late September. (Hauf, 10/13)
KHN:
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Finally Fixes ‘Family Glitch’
The Biden administration issued regulations this week aimed at fixing the Affordable Care Act’s “family flaw,” which has prevented families who can’t afford their employer insurance from getting subsidized coverage on the insurance marketplaces. The Obama administration had decided that only Congress could fix the bug. Meanwhile, open enrollment for Medicare begins Oct. 15, when beneficiaries can join or change private Medicare Advantage plans or stand-alone prescription drug plans. (10/13)
‘Weirder’ Winter Covid Wave Expected, Driven by a Complex Mix of Varieties
A stream of different omicron subvariants are emerging independently around the world, each with beneficial mutations. Anticipating the surge, the US public health crisis just widened.
Yahoo News:
The next US COVID wave is coming. Why it’s getting “much weirder than before”
The orderly succession of individually dominant variants we’ve come to expect over the past two years—think Alpha, then Beta, then Delta, then Omicron—may also be a thing of the past. Instead, what scientists now see is a trove of worrisome Omicron descendants arising simultaneously but independently in different corners of the globe—all with the same set of beneficial mutations that help them evade our existing immune defenses and drive new waves of infection. Experts call this “convergent evolution” – and right now there’s a “quite unprecedented amount” of it going on, according to Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London. (Romano, 10/13)
KHN:
Will Covid Spike Again This Fall? 6 tips to help you stay safe
Last year, the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant of the covid-19 virus surprised many people and led to a surge in cases that overwhelmed hospitals and led to deaths. Now we learn that the omicron mutates to better evade the immune system. Omicron-specific vaccines were approved by the FDA in August and are recommended by US health officials for anyone 5 years of age or older. Yet only half of U.S. adults have heard much about these booster shots, according to a recent KFF survey, and only a third say they’ve gotten one or plan to get one soon. In 2020 and 2021, covid cases in the US increased between November and February. (Gounder, 10/14)
CNBC:
US Extends Covid Public Health Emergency
