Budget Battles
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Democrats Set Up a Shutdown and Debt Limit Showdown With GOP
Congress is back, and it’s going to be busy. House lawmakers returned today, meaning that both chambers of Congress are in session for the first time since July. They have a thicket of interconnected...
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CDC to Spend $2.1 Billion on Effort to Cut Hospital Infections
The Biden administration on Friday announced a plan to spend $2.1 billion to improve infection prevention and control across the U.S. health care system, the largest such investment in the country’s...
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House Ways and Means Committee Approves Medicare Expansion
The House Ways and Means Committee voted on Friday to advance a measure expanding Medicare coverage to include vision, hearing and dental care. Under the plan, vision benefits would begin in 2022 and...
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Biden Defiant as Republicans Blast New Vaccine Rules
By Michael RaineySome Republican leaders are making it crystal clear that they do not support the vaccine requirements affecting thousands of businesses and millions of workers announced by President Joe Biden on...
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Biden Administration Backs Medicare Negotiations in Plan to Lower Drug Prices
The Biden administration on Thursday called for allowing Medicare to negotiate prices directly with drugmakers as part of a new plan to lower prescription drug prices. The 29-page plan , issued by...
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Biden Outlines New Plan to Combat Covid-19
By Michael RaineyFaced with a late-summer surge in Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a new plan to combat the virus. Among other initiatives, the six-point...
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Democrats Plot Biggest Health Care Expansion Since Obamacare
As Democrats get down to negotiating and writing their budget reconciliation bill, The Washington Post’s Rachel Roubein notes that the legislation is poised to be the biggest health expansion since...
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Biden Calls for Mandates as FDA Approves Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine
By Michael RaineyThe Food and Drug Administration on Monday gave full approval to the Covid-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech, which until now had been used under emergency authorization. The vaccine has...
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Biden Presses Congress to Lower 'Outrageously' High Drug Prices
President Biden on Thursday called on Congress to lower prescription drug prices by enacting a number of reforms, including allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. “There aren’t...
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US Health Care System Worst Among Wealthy Nations: Report
By Michael RaineyThe U.S. spends more on health care relative to the size of its economy than any other nation, but its health care system ranks dead last among a group of its peers, according to a new analysis from...
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Biden Signs Sweeping Executive Order to Promote Competition, Lower Prices
President Joe Biden on Friday signed a sweeping executive order that aims to foster competition and limit or reverse corporate consolidation, steps that the president says will lower prices, increase...
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FDA Sharply Narrows Recommended Use of Biogen's New Alzheimer’s Drug
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday dramatically narrowed its recommended usage guidelines for Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, suggesting that only patients with milder forms of the disease should...
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Medicare Could Save Billions on Generic Drugs by Being More Like Costco: Report
Medicare could have saved billions of dollars on generic drugs in recent years if it used a streamlined distribution system like retail giant Costco, according to an analysis published Tuesday in the...
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House Panels Launch Investigation Into Alzheimer’s Drug Pricing and Approval
Two House committees announced Friday that they are launching an investigation into the controversial approval and pricing of Biogen’s new $56,000-a-year Alzheimer’s drug. “We have serious concerns...
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Charts of the Day: The ‘Crazy’ Cost of the New Alzheimer’s Drug
The projected costs to Medicare from the newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm (aducanumab) are astronomical . “Plenty of other drugs cost more than Aduhelm, which is made by Biogen and will be...