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Health policy was front and center as Congress rushed to pass major legislation before leaving for its summer break. President Joe Biden signed a bill this week providing health benefits to military veterans who were sickened by exposure to toxic burn pits and will likely soon sign a measure allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs and extend enhanced subsidies for those who buy their insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces.
Meanwhile, the abortion debate continues to rage around the country, with Indiana becoming the first state to pass a new ban since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
The Senate parliamentarian determines whether provisions in special budget legislation called reconciliation bills meet the requirements to not be subject to a filibuster and are instead eligible to be passed with a simple majority vote. With the Inflation Reduction Act, she forced Democrats last week to drop some of the drug pricing provisions that would have applied to consumers in the private health insurance market. That includes a plan that would have required drugmakers to hold any increases in the price of certain drugs to the rate of inflation.Democrats were also disappointed that the parliamentarian denied their efforts to pass a price cap on insulin patients who are not covered by Medicare and that Republicans failed to support an effort to pass the measure. Several other bills designed to help keep the cost of the lifesaving medicine affordable are languishing in Congress and are unlikely to get a vote in the Senate this year.But the bill still provides key guarantees for Medicare beneficiaries and is a major change in how the government will interact with drugmakers. Getting legislation like this — so strongly opposed by the industry — was an impressive feat for the Democrats in an evenly divided Senate.If the bill passes the House on Friday, as expected, some of the changes to Medicar …