With Daniel Payne
HOW TO KILL AN OFFICE — Can former President Donald Trump eliminate a White House office charged with preparing the nation for the next pandemic? In some ways, but not completely, Chelsea reports.
The former president recently told TIME Magazine that if re-elected, he would abolish the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.
Trump said the agency, which was created in 2022 through bipartisan legislation, “sounds good politically, but I think it’s a very expensive solution to something that won’t work.”
The White House declined to comment on Trump’s comments, and the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Here are some ways some lawmakers and health policy experts say Trump could undermine the pandemic office.
1. He could choose not to appoint anyone to run or staff the office.
Under the legislation, the president “shall appoint” a director of the agency, but there is no deadline for this.
David Cleary, a senior policy advisor at the law firm DLA Piper, worked for then-Sen. Richard Burr when the North Carolina Republican co-sponsored legislation to create the office with Senator John Smith. Patty Murray (D-was.). Cleary told POLITICO that Trump could use that lack of guidance to sidetrack the office by not appointing a director or staff.
Cleary said the legislation that created the agency does not require it to be staffed.
2. He could ask Congress to overturn the law.
Since Congress created the agency, it would have had to pass a law to close it down. Cleary said Trump could make the case, but it might not gain traction because the bill had bipartisan support.
3. He could keep the office, but mold it in his image.
Cleary said Trump’s comments were reflexive and reflect his lack of trust in the bureaucracy — and that he may ultimately see value in the office.
One motivation for Republican lawmakers to create the agency was to shift leadership of the pandemic response away from the CDC, Cleary said. The current director of the White House office is retired Major General Paul Friedrichs.
“It overcomes bureaucracy [Trump] hates it so much,” Cleary said.
“That’s the benefit of having an office,” he added. “The alternative is that he just gives the authorities more power by taking away a level of control that we had in mind.”
WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE. The CDC has new rules for dogs entering the United States from abroad to prevent rabies. Send your tips, scoops and feedback to [email protected] And [email protected] and follow along @Chelsea Cirruzzo And @_BenLeonard_.
KIDNEY TRANSPLANT MODEL — CMS on Wednesday proposed a mandatory payment model that would incentivize most transplant hospitals in the country to increase the number of kidney transplants they perform.
It comes as federal officials are overhauling the entire organ transplant system, amid a growing waiting list of patients awaiting organs and congressional oversight of the only organization, the United Network for Organ Sharing, that has run the entire system since the 1980s. manages.
Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organ in the US and the most effective treatment for people with end-stage renal disease. According to HHS, 32 percent of the more than 100,000 people awaiting an organ transplant in 2021 were African American, but only 13.5 percent of living donor recipients were African American. White people make up a third of the waiting list, but 61.8 percent of donor recipients.
The six-year model, which should start next year — and which CMS estimates would include 90 percent of hospitals that perform organ transplants — would rate hospitals on the number of transplants they perform, the number of organs they accept and their station -transplant results.
Hospitals should also identify disparities among populations in their communities and develop health care plans, such as establishing programs to provide transportation assistance to patients on the waitlist.
HEALTHCARE REFORMS ON THE WAY — The first results of a Medicare payment reform bill in the Senate are expected next week, Daniel reports.
The Finance Committee plans to release a white paper outlining its plans to update the way Medicare pays health care providers, according to a person familiar with the committee’s plans.
That effort, closely watched by hospitals, doctors and insurers alike, could have significant implications for costs and the healthcare process in the US.
What do you know about the reform efforts? Let us know at [email protected].
Relaxing telehealth rules isn’t easy – The House Ways and Means Committee wants to loosen rules for Medicare telehealth, but how to do that is still in flux, Ben reports.
How we got here: Expanded virtual care coverage in Medicare and commercial plans under pandemic rules expires at the end of the year, as does the acute hospital care at home program.
On Wednesday, the committee considered legislation from Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) that would extend virtual care rules in Medicare through 2026 and the hospital at home through 2029. It left the committee on a vote of 41-0, despite some divisions over several provisions.
Lawmakers support – with caution — making expanded access to virtual care permanent. Thompson, co-chair of the Congressional Telehealth Caucus, said telehealth should be permanent in Medicare, in part because it can save money for the program, but he supports further research into the use of virtual care.
There is still a lot of compensation to pay the bill up in the air. which has different rewards. But lawmakers can’t agree on what offsets should be included in the final wording.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle often zeroed in on the issue on reducing fraud related to virtual care. The legislation would increase scrutiny of providers who charge for expensive, durable medical equipment to combat fraud and require a watchdog report on laboratory tests with a high risk of fraud. These can be a target for fraudsters in federal health care programs. So far, watchdog reports have not revealed widespread billing problems with telehealth.
Response from insurers: AHIP, which represents insurers, pushed back on the offset proposals in the legislation, saying in a statement that they would “undermine the flexibility of plan sponsors to develop value-based programs and shared savings arrangements that benefit patients and taxpayers.”
COLE TAKES A SECOND LOOK — Chairman of House Appropriations Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has been clear about his interest in reviving House earmarks in the Labor-HHS-Education funding bill, even as Republican leaders decided to abandon them again for fiscal year 2025, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report.
Cole’s predecessor, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), banned earmarks in the bill – but that does not affect the earmarks process in the Senate.
Cole wants to keep that debate going in the coming months. “It hurt us that we couldn’t reserve Labor H,” Cole told reporters this week.
Electronic medical records company NextGen Healthcare has hired Diane Kaye as Chief Product Officer. Kaye previously served as Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President at Omnicell. Jake Sims is now Chief Technology Officer, having previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Gainwell Technologies. Garo Doudian is now Chief Information and Security Officer, having previously served as Chief Information Security Officer for Risk Management Solutions, part of Moody’s Analytics.
POLITICO’s Marcia Brown reports that federal officials are asking veterinary drug makers to report on the status of an avian flu vaccine.
The New York Times reports on how human-imposed changes to the planet have made us more vulnerable to future pandemics, a new analysis shows.
Bloomberg reports on a settlement from Pfizer regarding the cancer risks of its heartburn drug Zantac.