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
07/27/2023
Mental Health
The Biden Administration released a proposed regulation this week to reinforce mental health (MHPAEA) requirements on private plans. The proposed rule would change MHPAEA such that health plans would need to evaluate the outcomes of coverage to ensure that mental health has equal coverage to medical coverage. This includes evaluating plan’s provider network, how much it pays out of network, and how much prior authorization occurs. It would also expand the applicability of MHPAEA to non-federal government plans.
Medicaid
- Medicaid disenrollment due to unwinding is now at 3.8 million beneficiaries. Overall, about 38% of those being renewed were disenrolled.
- North Carolina’s governor announced that Medicaid expansion would go into effect October 1st. There still is no agreement on funding for Medicaid expansion so it is unclear if that date will hold.
PBM Legislation
The Senate finance committee approved a bipartisan bill that would place new requirements on contracts between Medicare Part D plans and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The requirements include that payments must be for “bona fide service fee” that is not linked to a drug price albeit price concessions would still be allowed. It would also require PBMs to report drug price data to Part D plans and HHS.
Economy
The US economy has continued to grow. Data released today showed the economy has grown at 2.4%. The federal reserve has backed away from estimating a recession in the next half of the year. This shows all signs of growth for the rest of 2023.
Previous editions:
07/20/2023: Week in Washington
07/13/2023: Week in Washington
06/29/2023: Week in Washington
06/22/2023: Week in Washington
06/15/2023: Week in Washington
06/08/2023: Week in Washington
06/01/2023: Week in Washington
05/25/2023: Week in Washington