Healthcare Policy Fall Preview: The Congress Strikes Back

Here’s a preview of Congress’ fall healthcare policy agenda:

Lowering prescription drug prices – potentially allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

• Pelosi’s Plan, which includes the above direct negotiation tactic, might actually have bipartisan support

Finding a solution to surprise medical bills

• But as of now, it looks like Congress is facing major pushback from industry leaders on surprise billing – from an extremely well-funded dark money group. We might have to wait a bit for more surprise billing legislation.

• Look for more action at the state level. Texas, California, Colorado and others have recently released legislation to help combat these devastatingly high bills.

Other healthcare things to look out for this fall:

• Unveiling Trump’s healthcare plan (expanding Medicare Advantage, giving states more leeway, etc.)
• Resolving Gun-control disputes

In other policy news, HHS is releasing $1.8 billion to combat the opioid epidemic.

And it looks like a top doctor from Texas, Stephen Hahn, is a top candidate to replace Scott Gottlieb as the head of the FDA.