GOP House Opens With Abortion Agenda

The Host

Having spent its total first week selecting a speaker, the Republican-led U.S. Home lastly obtained right down to legislative enterprise, together with passing two payments backed by anti-abortion teams. Neither is more likely to grow to be legislation, as a result of they received’t cross the Senate nor be signed by President Joe Biden. However the transfer highlights how abortion is bound to stay a high-visibility concern within the nation’s capital.

In the meantime, as open enrollment for the Inexpensive Care Act nears its Jan. 15 shut, a document variety of individuals have signed up, making the most of renewed subsidies and different assist with medical prices.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Instances, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:

• The Home now has a speaker after 15 rounds of full-chamber roll name votes. That paved the best way for members to be sworn in, committee assignments to be made, and new committee chairs to be named. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Jason Smith (R-Mo.) will probably be taking the helm of main well being committees.
• McMorris Rodgers will lead the Home Power and Commerce Committee; Smith would be the chairman of Methods and Means. In contrast to McMorris Rodgers, Smith has little background in well being points and has principally centered on tax points in his public speaking factors. However Medicare is more likely to be on the agenda, which would require the enter of the chairs of each committees.
• One factor is definite: The brand new GOP-controlled Home will do a number of investigations. Republicans have already reconstituted a committee to analyze covid-19, though, not like the Democrats’ panel, this one is more likely to spend time looking for the origin of the virus and monitor the place federal {dollars} could have been misspent.
• The Home this week started contemplating a collection of abortion-related payments — “assertion” or “messaging” payments — which are unlikely to see the sunshine of day within the Senate. Nevertheless, some within the caucus query the knowledge of holding votes on points like these that would make their extra reasonable members extra weak. To this point, payments have had principally unanimous help from the GOP. Divisions usually tend to emerge on matters like a nationwide abortion ban. In the meantime, the Title X program, which pays for issues like contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections, is changing into a scorching subject on the state degree and in some lawsuits. A case in Texas would prohibit contraception availability for minors by means of this program.
• It’s more and more clear that abortion capsules are going to grow to be a fair larger a part of the abortion debate. On one hand, the FDA has relaxed a few of the danger analysis and mitigation methods (REMS) from the prescribing guidelines surrounding abortion capsules. The FDA places these additional restrictions or safeguards in place for sure medicine so as to add further safety. Some advocates say these capsules merely don’t convey that degree or danger.
• Anti-abortion teams are planning protests in early February at giant pharmacies comparable to CVS and Walgreens to attempt to get them to stroll again plans to distribute abortion capsules in states the place they’re authorized.
• A rising variety of states are pressuring the Division of Well being and Human Companies to permit them to import cheaper pharmaceuticals from Canada — or, extra precisely, importing Canada’s value controls. Whereas this has lengthy been a bipartisan concern, it has additionally lengthy been controversial. Officers on the FDA stay involved about breaking the closed provide chain between medicine being manufactured and delivered to accepted U.S. patrons. The coverage is widespread, nevertheless, as a result of it guarantees decrease costs on at the least some medicine.
• Additionally within the information from the FDA: The company granted accelerated approval for Leqembi for the remedy of Alzheimer’s illness. Leqembi is one other costly drug that seems to work, but in addition carries huge dangers. Nevertheless, it’s usually considered as an enchancment over the much more controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. Nonetheless to be decided is whether or not Medicare — which offers insurance coverage to most individuals with Alzheimer’s — will cowl the drug.
• Because the Inexpensive Care Act enrolls a document variety of People, it’s notable that repealing the legislation has not been talked about as a precedence for the brand new GOP majority within the Home. Fairly, the highest well being concern is more likely to be cut back the value of Medicare and different well being “entitlement” packages.

Plus, for additional credit score, the panelists advocate their favourite well being coverage tales of the week that they assume you must learn, too:

Julie Rovner: The Washington Submit’s “Social Safety Denies Incapacity Advantages Primarily based on Record With Jobs From 1977,” by Lisa Rein

Margot Sanger-Katz: Roll Name’s “Suppliers Say Medicare Benefit Hinders New Methadone Profit,” by Jessie Hellmann

Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Instances’ “Grant Wahl Was a Loving Husband. I Will All the time Defend His Legacy.” By Céline Gounder

Sarah Karlin-Smith: KHN’s “Hospitals’ Use of Volunteer Employees Runs Danger of Skirting Labor Legal guidelines, Consultants Say,” by Lauren Sausser

Additionally talked about on this week’s podcast:

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