| | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard and Chelsea Cirruzzo | | | With David Lim
| | |  During tonight's State of the Union address, President Joe Biden will no doubt bring up abortion rights. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | HEALTH CARE POLITICS AT SOTU — President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address is high-stakes, and health care will be at its center. Biden hopes to assuage concerns about his age and vitality as he attempts to convince voters that his term has been successful. Pulse expects Biden to address the following issues tonight — largely building on familiar themes. Abortion and reproductive rights: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, Democrats have politically capitalized on abortion and reproductive rights, and there’s no doubt Biden will try to do so tonight. But Biden has limited power over the issue as abortion access has crumbled post-Roe. And despite having public opinion on his side, it’s unclear whether the issue will translate to electoral success for Biden. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that while most respondents said the Dobbs decision was bad for the country, only a third blamed former President Donald Trump. Democrats are also betting on state abortion-rights ballot initiatives to boost turnout in national elections. Voters have decisively held up abortion rights in those cases, but a POLITICO analysis has found that the margins were mostly driven by GOP voters who still voted for Republican candidates. Drug pricing: Biden is expected to tout the Inflation Reduction Act, a major win in his bid to lower drug costs, but significant portions of the law won’t go into effect into a potential second term. The IRA’s cap on insulin co-pays and drug-price negotiation rules apply only to Medicare, and prices from the negotiations won’t take effect until 2026. Additionally, several lawsuits are challenging the program in federal courts. A KFF poll found that 50 percent of respondents think Biden has done more to tackle health care costs, compared with 48 percent for Trump. Biden wants to build on the law in a number of ways, his administration said in a fact sheet Wednesday, increasing the number of drugs under negotiation to 50 annually and expanding a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on drugs in Medicare starting in 2025 to private insurers. As it stands, Congress is unlikely to move those measures forward. When asked about the odds of Congress taking up the reforms, a senior administration official told reporters in a call Wednesday that there’s “little value in prognosticating about what Congress is and isn’t going to do.” Other issues: Biden is expected to tout his effort to bring about mental health parity and his proposed nursing-home staffing mandate. He could also tout the PACT Act he signed, expanding benefits for veterans exposed to toxins. He called to bolster Medicaid coverage for children in the fact sheet. WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. We hope you haven’t gotten 217 Covid shots. Reach us and send us your tips, news and scoops at bleonard@politico.com or ccirruzzo@politico.com. Follow along @_BenLeonard_ and @ChelseaCirruzzo.
| | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care: Hospitals and health systems provide patients with critical care 24/7/365 — especially in rural and underserved areas. Congress: It’s time to protect patients’ access to vital care. Learn more. | | | | | A LOOK AT ‘ABORTION VOTERS’ — Close to 1 in 8 voters say abortion is the top issue deciding their vote in 2024, according to a new KFF poll of more than 1,000 registered voters released today. Fifty-two percent also said it’s a “very important issue but not the most important.” Among the 12 percent of voters who said abortion is their top issue, or so-called abortion voters, 48 percent said they would vote for President Joe Biden compared with 26 percent for former President Donald Trump. Who the abortion voters are: The group was disproportionately women, as well as Black women, women in states with abortion bans and women between ages 18 and 49.
|  | | A majority of such voters told pollsters that abortion should be allowed in “all or most cases.” “This is a significant shift from elections prior to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, when abortion voters were largely those who identified as pro-life,” KFF wrote. Here are other key findings from the poll: — 16 percent of women between 18 and 49 said abortion is the top issue in deciding their 2024 vote. — 45 percent of adults say they see the right to contraception as a “secure right likely to remain in place.” — Roughly two-thirds of those surveyed haven’t heard of a pending case before the Supreme Court that could restrict access to medication abortion.
| | | | JOIN US ON 3/21 FOR A TALK ON FINANCIAL LITERACY: Americans from all communities should be able to save, build wealth, and escape generational poverty, but doing so requires financial literacy. How can government and industry ensure access to digital financial tools to help all Americans achieve this? Join POLITICO on March 21 as we explore how Congress, regulators, financial institutions and nonprofits are working to improve financial literacy education for all. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | ALABAMA PROTECTS IVF DOCS — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey swiftly signed legislation on Wednesday passed by the state’s GOP-controlled legislature giving physicians who provide in vitro fertilization civil and criminal immunity for any death or damage to embryos, POLITICO's Megan Messerly reports. The legislature’s vote and Ivey’s signature come nearly three weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, leading three fertility clinics in the state to pause IVF services and setting off a national debate among Republicans over whether where life begins matters just as much as when — and if so, what to do about it. The discussions on the ground in Alabama underscore the challenging position Republicans are in as they head into the 2024 election — and the increasing friction between rank-and-file GOP lawmakers and anti-abortion groups. Ivey, a Republican, said in a statement that she was “pleased” to sign the measure into law to help clinics reopen but couched it as a “short-term” fix. “IVF is a complex issue, no doubt, and I anticipate there will be more work to come,” Ivey said. "Let me say clearly: Alabama supports growing families through IVF.”
| | DRUGMAKER CAPS INHALER COSTS — Boehringer Ingelheim said today it will cap out-of-pocket costs for its inhalers at $35 a month starting in June for many patients, David reports. The drugmaker said it’s restricted from providing co-pay support to patients enrolled in federal insurance programs. The action comes months after Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and other lawmakers launched an investigation in January into the prices four companies — AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Teva — charge for inhalers used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. But Boehringer Ingelheim USA CEO Jean-Michel Boers told POLITICO that the company is acting independently because uninsured and underinsured patients sometimes face “extremely high prices for their inhalers.” Company spokesperson Michele Baer said the company action wasn’t linked to the investigation. “Patient co-pays for patients with insurance are very often based on the list price of products,” Boers said, adding that the company plans to lower inhaler list prices on Jan. 1, 2025. “We are actually rebating and discounting our inhalers on average more than 70 percent, well over 70 percent, but unfortunately, we don’t see that these rebates and discounts make it into patients’ pockets.”
| | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care:   | | | | | UNLIKELY ALLIANCE ON AI REGULATION — Strange bedfellows are coming together in a bid to bolster transparency in artificial intelligence, a move that would apply to agencies like HHS, the VA and the FDA. On Wednesday, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) introduced legislation that would establish guardrails for how federal agencies test and validate AI. Other co-sponsors include Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). It would give the White House Office of Management and Budget a key oversight role. The bill comes after Biden issued an executive order this fall that included a call for HHS to create an AI task force to craft a strategic plan for deployment, an assurance policy and a safety program for detecting errors. What's next: The committee will mark up the legislation this morning. GENETIC DATA BILL ADVANCES — Legislation that intends to prohibit foreign adversaries from acquiring Americans’ genetic data advanced through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The bill from Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) would bar biotech companies controlled by a foreign adversary’s government from getting federal contracts; it advanced in an 11-1 vote. The bill specifically calls out several firms lawmakers say have ties to the Chinese government. “It’s important that when Americans undergo typical medical care, such as getting their blood drawn or other tests, they are confident their DNA will not end up in the wrong hands,” Peters said. The opposition: Committee ranking member Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expressed concerns that anger against China would result in protectionism that could raise costs for consumers. ALSO IN CONGRESS — The House approved a government funding package Wednesday covering the FDA and VA, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report. The Senate must reach an agreement on the measure before the weekend. Funding for HHS, being handled in a separate package, runs out on March 22. Here’s an overview of what’s in the package for health care if you need a refresher.
| | | | DON’T MISS POLITICO’S HEALTH CARE SUMMIT: The stakes are high as America's health care community strives to meet the evolving needs of patients and practitioners, adopt new technologies and navigate skeptical public attitudes toward science. Join POLITICO’s annual Health Care Summit on March 13 where we will discuss the future of medicine, including the latest in health tech, new drugs and brain treatments, diagnostics, health equity, workforce strains and more. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | Healthcare Dive reports on a JAMA Health Forum study that found Medicare Advantage patients had fewer home health visits than those in traditional Medicare. The Wall Street Journal reports on the first American born via IVF advocating for the treatment.
| | | | A message from the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care: Hospitals and health systems are critical in rural and underserved communities. When entire areas are underserved by other parts of our health system, local hospitals preserve patients’ access to care.
But half of hospitals are operating at a loss. More than 140 rural hospitals have cut services or closed altogether, and hundreds more are at risk of closing.
Rural and underserved communities need hospital care that is high quality, accessible 24/7, and innovating to serve them even more safely and effectively. We’re telling Congress: strengthen and support patients’ access to the care America’s hospitals and health systems provide.
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