Hopeful Of Taking The House, Dems Quietly Readying For Slew Of Investigations Into Health Law ‘Sabotage’
But party leaders insist that, if they do gain control of the House, they want to be careful to make sure their inquiries into the Trump administration's moves on health care will be focused on real policy rather than point-scoring.
Politico:
House Democrats Plan Investigations Blitz Over Trump Health Policies
Democrats are quietly preparing to launch a slew of investigations into the Trump administration's health care moves if they retake the House in November, aiming to freeze the White House's efforts to unravel Obamacare and probe the administration's care of immigrant kids. The wide-ranging inquiries, coordinated across multiple committees, would focus on the administration’s most controversial actions on health care, which include chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, urging the courts to gut the health law's protections for pre-existing conditions, and separating migrant families at the border, lawmakers and aides told POLITICO. (Cancryn and Ollstein, 10/4)
In other national health care news —
The Associated Press:
Immigrants Refuse Aid For Fear It Will Doom Green Card Hopes
When she was struggling financially this past year, Laura Peniche traveled all over Denver to get free food from churches to feed her three young children. She was too scared to apply for government food assistance. When she was offered a chance a few weeks ago to get a reduced-rent apartment through a city program, she turned it down. Instead, she stretches her budget to pay several hundred dollars a month more to rent somewhere else. (10/3)
Stat:
What The Last Trade Debate Over Drug Prices Can Tell Us About The New One
The drug pricing advocates who once trounced President Obama for his proposal to shield expensive biologic drugs from competition are now girding for a fight with President Trump over his new trade pact. ...Trump announced earlier this week that his newly renegotiated trade agreement with Mexico and Canada — now dubbed the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — will require all three countries provide 10 years of exclusivity for brand name biologic drugs, which are made from living cells and used to treat complex conditions like cancer. That means competitors that copy these drugs, often known as biosimilars, would be legally barred from entering the market for that period of time. (Florko, 10/3)
Stat:
This New Advocacy Group Is An Unapologetic Defender Of High Drug Prices
It’s less than a week old, but a shadowy new pharma advocacy group is already launching diatribes against advocates for lower drug prices, blasting pharmacy middlemen and defending even sky-high list prices for prescription drugs. The new group, the Alliance to Protect Medical Innovation, says its goal is to “help educate policymakers and the public about medical breakthroughs developed by the biopharmaceutical industry.” An “About Us” section on its website describes it as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. (Florko, 10/4)
Los Angeles Times:
More Than 1 In 3 Americans Eat Fast Food On A Typical Day, And We Eat It All Day Long
If you’re an adult in America, there’s a better than 1 in 3 chance that you’ll eat fast food today — if you haven’t already. New survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 36.6% of us eat some kind of fast food on any given day. That includes 37.9% of men and 35.4% of women, according to a report published Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. (Kaplan, 10/3)