Policy Corner, week of October 28, 2019.
All about Vaping: The FDA is considering a flavored Vaping Ban (smoking is fine though, no worries). Also, a Vaping Tax Bill on the House Panel.
The House Ways and Means Committee is considering a vaping tax bill this week. The bill would tax vaping products at the same level as tobacco products.
Not to be outdone, the FDA is actually about to ban flavored e-cigs for good.
This ban would exclude mint and menthol flavors (thank goodness) and is coming on the heels of over 1,600 vaping related mysterio-illnesses.
The FTC wants to take a closer look at Hospital Mergers
This week, the Federal Trade Commission phoned a few hospital friends along with major insurance companies to request data on recent mergers and acquisitions.
The agency is really trying to hone in on certain states with certificates of public advantages (COPA) – namely, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia – states with large rural areas.
In particular, the FTC wants to research whether COPAs are good for the public or not.
What’s a COPA?
States can use COPAs to shield hospital and health system mergers from federal regulations and monopolies (basically, they take the merger approval into their own hands and keep the feds away from the transaction altogether).
Why would the states ever issue them?
It’s a bit tricky in healthcare (what’s new, right?). In most cases, states issue a COPA for a transaction because the merger is taking place in a rural area.
Most of these states have large rural areas and want to keep those hospitals open. It doesn’t help that rural hospitals have been really struggling lately.
So, in an attempt to keep these rural hospitals alive, states have been allowing monopolies in these markets to have hospitals rather than none at all.
There’s also no way any of these communities could support two hospitals, so introducing competition is simply out of the question.
It might not an ideal solution, but here’s how it works – a larger local health system comes in and purchases the struggling rural operation.
States shield the transaction from federal antitrust oversight and allow the merger.
Then the local rural community keeps its hospital, and maybe the health system benefits if it turns operations around.
Healthcare Lobbying pushes higher.
How much did the different healthcare trade organizations spend on lobbying this quarter? Glad you asked.
- PhRMA (3 guesses on which industry they rep) spent $6.2 million as drug pricing legislation bounces around Congress to no avail (currently)
- Amgen: $3 million
- Bayer: $2 million
- AbbVie: $1.8 million
- Pfizer: $1.6 million
- Gilead Sciences: $1.5 million
- Meanwhile, don’t forget about the surprise billing lobbying blitz happening at the other end of the healthcare world, totaling $4.1 million in lobbying spending in the third quarter alone.
In the miscellaneous category…
Carcinogenic breasts: The FDA might require breast implant manufacturers to post cancer warnings on its labels.
Rural ACOs get a lift: Senators are considering boosting payments to rural ACOs
ACA Replacement Republican Healthcare Plan? Here’s a quick writeup on what any possible ACA replacement might look like from the Republican party. Main takeaway: give more regulatory power to the states, save pre-existing conditions, and give Medicaid block grants. Read the full report here.
Big win for payors: The U.S. was just ordered ordered to cough up $1.59B in subsidies to Kaiser, Oscar, and other payors
AI and Fraud Detection: And finally, the CMS is looking to use artificial intelligence to help with fraud – especially in home health, where fraud can be rampant.