Week in Washington 032422

Week in Washington is brought to you by Michael Cohen, PhD. Tune in each week to read the latest on healthcare policy and get a glimpse of what’s on the horizon

Week in Washington

3/24/2022

Insulin

There is increasing chatter in DC around a bipartisan bill to cap insulin costs. In particular, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer announced a vote that would be scheduled in late April to cap insulin costs and more generally control insulin prices. Such a bill could have dramatic effects, given the utilization of insulin drugs. The announcement also highlights there is movement at the moment for an extension of the American Rescue plan ACA subsidies (i.e., unlikely anything would be passed before May).

Covid

Child Vaccine Coming?

There were a number of items on the COVID vaccine front. Moderna announced that its clinical trial for a Covid Vaccine for 6 months to 6 years showed positive data. As a result, Moderna will submit a request for authorization for approval of its vaccine to the FDA in the coming weeks.

Fourth Dose

There’s increasingly a push by the Biden Administration for a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine to be approved soon. The problem is that a lack of Covid funding means that there may not be sufficient supply to meet the needs of the general public for a fourth dose.

ACA Anniversary

The Affordable Care Act celebrated its 12th anniversary (yep the ACA is a tween) this week. HHS released a series of report on the impact of the ACA on health coverage, the individual market, and Medicaid.

CMS

CMS also made a number of announcements in regards to the individual market including:

• Continued non-enforcement on transition plans (i.e., they’ll continue for another year)
• Interim risk adjustment data
• Open Enrollment Data
  • The 2022 Open Enrollment (Exchange) PUF showed that 14.5 million consumers selected a plan during this year’s Open Enrollment. Overall, this is a 21% increase over last year (or an increase of 2.5 million). One of the notable changes is that with the additional subsidies provided by the American Rescue Plan, consumers shifted to richer metal levels (as can be seen below). These additional subsidies are currently scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

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