Plus, your Monday news roundup
Trumpcare, Coming This Fall?
The Trump White House is “considering releasing” its long-promised health-care plan next month as part of an election campaign effort to counter calls from some Democrats for a transition to Medicare for All, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Citing unnamed sources, the Journal’s Stephanie Armour and Andrew Restuccia report that the Trump plan could provide coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions and may seek to increase sales of insurance policies across state lines. Other elements being discussed include expanded health savings accounts and linking price transparency to quality metrics.
Reality check: This could all still fizzle. “White House officials stressed that the plans haven't been completed, and some close to the president have privately expressed skepticism,” Armour and Restuccia write. “One former White House official raised the possibility that the plan may not materialize this fall if Mr. Trump second-guesses the effort. The administration is also still weighing how specific the plan should be, the people familiar with the plan said, and the ideas have yet to get Mr. Trump’s sign off.”
The politics at play: The push to announce a plan reportedly comes as members of the Trump team are concerned that the president may be vulnerable on health care. The administration is supporting a legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act that, if successful, could leave some 20 million Americans uninsured or at risk of higher health care costs. Recent polls have found that the public trusts Democrats more on the health-care issue. Releasing a plan could help address that problem, for example by reinforcing Trump’s promise that Americans with pre-existing condition will still be protected if Obamacare is struck down. But putting out specific proposals would likely also open the president up to policy-based attacks, and those debates aren’t Trump’s strong suit.
The bottom line: Even if Trump does release a plan, parts would require congressional approval, and that’s unlikely to happen with a Democratic-controlled House — and with Republicans potentially facing internal divisions on health care, too. But the Journal report is just another indication that health care will be front and center in next year’s election.
Number of the Day: Nearly 1,200 Authorized Generic Drugs Have Been Approved in the U.S.
Kaiser Health News reports that authorized generic drugs — those released by branded drug companies to compete with their own products — appeared at the rate of about one a week last year and now number nearly 1,200 total.
“While these might look like products that would push prices down, authorized generics can be as profitable as, if not more profitable than, brand-name drugs,” Kaiser’s Jay Hancock and Sydney Lupkin explain. Critics charge that these approved knockoffs hurt competition and can increase costs and reduce industry incentives to manufacture generics. “It’s a parlor trick,” one senior pharmacy benefits executive told Kaiser about Eli Lilly’s authorized generic insulin. “They’re bending to political pressure, but are they taking any money out of the system? They’re not.”
The pharmaceutical industry says that authorized generics do increase competition and lower costs.
Read the full Kaiser Health News story.
Chart of the Day
Why have American incomes barely budged, after adjusting for inflation, over the past 20 years? Axios’ Bob Herman shows how rising health care costs have eaten away at any income gains. “In 1999, the average health insurance coverage for a family consumed 14% of the average household income, according to inflation-adjusted figures from the Census Bureau and the Kaiser Family Foundation,” he writes. “By 2017, family coverage absorbed more than double that amount, to about 31% of take-home pay.”
News
- Trump Condemns White Supremacy, Focuses on Combating Mental Illness Over New Gun-Control Measures – Washington Post
- Are Video Games or Mental Illness Causing America’s Mass Shootings? No, Research Shows. – Washington Post
- Dow Plunges 760 Points in Worst Day of 2019 as Trade War Intensifies – CNBC
- McConnell Promised to End Senate Gridlock. Instead, Republicans Are Stuck in Neutral. – New York Times
- Drug Industry Urges Canada to Act Early on U.S. Import Plan – Reuters
- 19 Democratic Hopefuls Pitch Their Platforms to Union Voters in Las Vegas – Washington Post
- 2020 Dems’ Health Care Battle Is Decades in the Making – Associated Press
- Bernie Sanders-Style Health Plans Have Reached a Saturation Point – Bloomberg Businessweek
- States Clash With Cities Over Potential Opioids Settlement Payouts – New York Times
- Charity Becomes a Lifeline Even for Americans with Health Insurance as Deductibles Soar – Los Angeles Times
- Cancer Patients Are Being Denied Drugs, Even with Doctor Prescriptions and Good Insurance – Fresno Bee
- Top Kidney Charity Directed Aid to Patients at DaVita and Fresenius Clinics, Lawsuit Claims – New York Times
- Why Alphabet, Amazon and Apple Are All Working on Diabetes Tech – CNBC
- Medicaid Supporters Call for Full Expansion After Failure of Utah Legislature’s Health Care Plan – Salt Lake Tribune
- This Social Security Rule Cuts Public Workers’ Benefits. Politicians Want to Change That – CNBC
- Trump Administration to Place New Restrictions on Billions in Aid for Puerto Rico – Washington Post
Views and Analysis
- After Shootings, Republicans Have Avoided Talking About Trump and White Nationalism – Amber Phillips, Washington Post
- Why Go to the Trouble of Running for President to Promote Ideas That Can’t Work? – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Kamala Harris’s Health-Care Plan Shows There Are Ambitious Options Outside of Medicare-for-All – Washington Post Editorial Board
- It’s Time for Democrats to Get Their Facts Right on Medicare-for-All – Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Washington Post
- What Will Happen to Doctors and Hospitals Under Medicare-for-All? – Ryan Cooper, The Week
- The International Pricing Index Would Damage the Health of American Seniors – Mark Gibbons, Morning Consult
- We Still Need Rebate Reform – Robert Popovian, Morning Consult
- Foreign Drugs Import Danger – Sally Pipes, Washington Examiner
- The GOP Has Abandoned Small Government Principles Just When We Need Them the Most – James Pillion, Washington Examiner
- A Pro-Growth Carbon Tax Could Lower the Payroll Tax Rate – Jason J. Fichtner, Washington Examiner
- A Look at Recent Proposals to Control Drug Spending by Medicare and its Beneficiaries – Kaiser Family Foundation
- The U.S. Army Gives a Whole New Meaning to Wardrobe Malfunction – Kevin Petersen, Washington Post