The Health Care Reform Corner – From the editors of "The Pink Sheet"
What are policymakers and stakeholders in Washington saying and doing about health care reform? In this periodic BioPharma Today feature, the editors of "The Pink Sheet" and "The Pink Sheet" DAILY highlight some of the major developments chronicled in those publications.
Read today's features....
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- White House advisors are urging lawmakers to consider the details of a public health plan option in health reform before taking a stance against it. The administration’s proposal to have a public health plan created to compete against private plans is one of the most contentious issues in the health reform debate, but White House chief Nancy-DeParle said at a reporters’ briefing that “it’s been interesting to me in talking to members of Congress who have raised questions about it to learn that when you start using examples, actually [the legislators] aren’t so clear about what it is.” The administration links the public option with its basic goals: trying to lower costs and keeping the private sector “honest” and “competitive,” DeParle said. Everyone agrees with those goals, DeParle noted, and the White House is open to different approaches on how to get there. Read the story here…
The greatest threat to pharma and biotech profits from national health reform would be a bill that establishes a public insurance plan option, industry experts asserted at the BIO-Windhover Pharmaceutical Strategic Outlook Conference in New York City. A public plan “will have pricing authority, it will be able to negotiate prices, which means it will establish the prices,” predicted consultant Ian Spatz, former vice president of global policy at Merck. “To me, this is the absolute number-one threat and it’s not just a threat to biopharma.” Read the story here…
Senate Finance Committee members revealed in their written questions to HHS Secretary-designate Kathleen Sebelius concerns across a wide range of issues, including Medicaid drug rebates and Medicare Part D, that could come to the forefront during the upcoming health care reform debate. Many of the questions in policy areas related to the pharmaceutical industry came from questions posed by committee Republicans. In fact, 164 of the 214 written questions submitted by the committee came from eight committee Republicans, with nearly half coming from Ranking Member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Read the story here…
Private stakeholders representing a variety of interests brought a common message to the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research’s first public meeting: we want more involvement. That message was a recurring theme throughout the first “listening session” hosted by the council on April 14 to solicit stakeholder input on comparative effectiveness research and the council’s activities. Read the story here…
PhRMA’s new chairman, AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan, wants to make a deal on health reform - but not necessarily the kind of tradeoff the industry made on the Medicare drug benefit. “In the world that we have known in the past, one could argue we’re going to do a price/volume tradeoff and figure out what’s the best price point,” Brennan said at a briefing for reporters shortly before assuming his new role at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “But my view is that at least right now, what’s being discussed in terms of the health care policy reform has a higher agenda than that,” he said. “There’s discussion about outcomes, about comparative effectiveness, about quality, about trying to reform the system so that the incentives are not incentives to just take action and get rewarded for it.” Read the story here…
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