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Azar returns to work at HHS. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was back at Washington headquarters Wednesday after battling diverticulitis, a stomach infection, during which he was in Indiana with his family and hospitalized for a couple of nights. “He continues to work on a modified schedule to ensure a full recovery and has no scheduled public events this week,” said HHS press secretary Caitlin Oakley.

House panel to start work today on massive raft of opioid bills. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee will meet this afternoon to consider about 60 bills aimed at combating the opioid epidemic. The markup scheduled for 1 p.m. is the first legislative step for the committee’s massive effort. Committee leaders have said the goal is to get all of the bills through the House by the Memorial Day recess. The bills address various facets of the opioid crisis, including reforms to Medicare and Medicaid and giving federal agencies more enforcement tools. Other bills seek to entice development of non-opioid drugs and to expand treatment options for addicts. The markup is being held a day after the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced its own bipartisan legislation to combat opioid abuse.

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White House calls for VA pick Jackson’s hearing to be rescheduled. The White House on Wednesday called for the Senate to swiftly reschedule a confirmation hearing for embattled Department of Veterans Affairs nominee Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, after lawmakers indefinitely postponed his hearing to lead the agency pending an investigation into allegations of excessive drinking and improper drug distribution. “We think he deserves his chance to have a fair hearing,” legislative affairs director Marc Short said. Short also addressed allegations of improper prescribing. “Every year they come in and review the White House physician’s office … and every year they said he’s holding compliance with what he’s prescribing.” President Trump on Tuesday said he is standing by Jackson, after he said he would understand if the White House physician withdrew his nomination. A senior White House official on Tuesday pushed back on an Associated Press report saying that Jackson had once been recommended for removal from his position in the West Wing, and blamed his current troubles on “a bitter ex-colleague.”

Jackson hasn’t indicated he’ll withdraw. Jackson offered no signs Tuesday he intends to withdraw his name from nomination, instead telling reporters at the Capitol he was disappointed by the delay. “I’m looking forward to the hearing, so we can sit down and I can explain everything to everyone and answer all the senators’ questions,” he said. A source involved in Jackson’s confirmation preparations said there was little vetting performed by the White House before the announcement of his nomination to lead the second-largest executive agency. The same source said Jackson struggled to answer questions about his management experience — a primary concern of several lawmakers who would ultimately be voting on his confirmation — during trial runs for his hearing.

Ex-Obamacare official: ‘I never thought the mandate was all that powerful.’ Kevin Counihan, the former CEO of healthcare.gov, said he didn’t believe Obamacare’s mandate that everyone buy health insurance was “all that powerful.” “The dollar value for the penalty was not that significant, particularly compared to premium,” Counihan said. “There were so many opportunities for people to appeal. Whether it was for affordability, for college education, for religious purposes and others.” Counihan made the comments during the first-quarter earnings call for Centene, the health insurer for which he now works. The comments were first reported by Forbes, and are in contrast to reports warning that millions more people would not have health insurance without the mandate penalty, which will cost nothing beginning in 2019. Insurers lobbied against repealing the fine without a replacement, such as a waiting period. Centene is one of the largest sellers of Obamacare plans, with 1.6 million customers who use the exchanges.

Anthem sees profits jump 30 percent after shedding Obamacare customers, adding Medicare Advantage customers. Health insurer Anthem saw a boost in profits during the first quarter after it decided to sell fewer Obamacare plans and instead focus on Medicare Advantage. The company’s profits increased 30 percent, to $1.3 billion, from the first quarter of 2017, according to its latest earnings report. In an earnings call Wednesday morning, Gail K. Boudreaux, Anthem president and CEO, said the company plans to focus more in its Medicare Advantage business, which offers a private option to beneficiaries, who are 65 and older or have disabilities. Enrollment in those Anthem plans grew by 237,000 during the first quarter. Executives of Anthem, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield, decided to leave Obamacare exchanges in Georgia, Kentucky, Maine and Nevada for this year, resulting in 800,000 fewer enrollees. The company still has coverage for 755,000 people on the individual market, 500,000 of whom have plans that follow Obamacare’s mandates.

Trump administration wants it to be easier to shop hospital prices. The Trump administration wants to make it easier to shop hospital prices and move doctors more quickly toward using electronic health records. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released proposed regulations Tuesday that would require hospitals to put their standard list of prices on the Internet, instead of the current requirement to make them available “in some form.”  The proposed regulation also aims starting in 2019 to overhaul the CMS electronic health record incentive program, which entices doctors to adopt electronic health records. The program is now meant to give incentives to “make it easier for patients to obtain their medical records electronically,” CMS said.

FDA chief plans attack on superbugs in meat supply. The Food and Drug Administration will roll out a proposal to combat superbugs in farm animals, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday. “We are going to be rolling out in the next couple of months our plan for what we will do to build on some of the good work that has already been done, and looking at some additional steps that we can take to make sure there is judicious use of antibiotics in the farm setting,” Gottlieb said during a Senate budget hearing. Roughly 2 million people every year become infected with “superbugs,” bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, and at least 23,000 people die as a result of those infections, according to federal data. One reason for the rise in superbugs is the improper or overuse of antibiotics, both in people and in the meat supply.

FDA chief: Generic drug backlog ‘no longer exists.’ Gottlieb said that in “a nutshell” a backlog of thousands of applications for new generic drugs has been erased, but with a major caveat. The agency had accumulated a backlog of about 4,000 drug applications. The backlog is part of the reason the agency started collecting user fees from generic drug companies in 2012. The law specified that by 2017 the agency would act on 90 percent of the applications in the backlog. Gottlieb tweeted on Tuesday that “we reached that milestone more than a year ahead of schedule.” But the agency only had to “act” on the applications, not approve them. The agency did approve a record number of generic drugs last year, approving 1,027 new products.

JUUL e-cigarettes want to raise minimum smoking age after FDA crackdown. JUUL Labs, maker of a popular e-cigarette targeted by the FDA because of its popularity among teens, said Wednesday it supports raising the minimum age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. JUUL said Wednesday that it will “build on existing youth prevention and education programs” by supporting state and federal initiatives to raise the minimum smoking age to 21. The announcement comes a day after the FDA sent warnings to 40 stores that sold JUUL e-cigarettes to minors.

Planned Parenthood sues Indiana over law requiring annual inspections of abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood on Monday sued Indiana for its new law requiring annual inspections of abortion clinics, which also requires medical providers who treat women for complications resulting from an abortion to report the patient’s information to the state. In the federal lawsuit, Planned Parenthood says both provisions “impose unique and burdensome obligations” that are unconstitutional because they target abortions and abortion providers but no other procedures or clinics, the Associated Press reported. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

Births to 10-14 year olds hit record low. The number of babies born to girls between the ages of 10 and 14 dropped to a record low in 2016, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of births dropped to 2,253 in 2016 from 8,529 in 2000. The trend follows that of older teens, between the ages of 15 and 19, for whom birth rates have declined by 57 percent in the same period. CDC scientists credited the decrease to data showing teens delaying sex and having sex less, as well as to the use of more effective contraception.

RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal Shire opens door to $64 billion sale to Japan’s Takeda

Governing Six months since Trump declared an opioid emergency, what has changed?

Bloomberg Generic drug companies to face first charges in U.S. probe

Politico How Trump botched the Ronny Jackson nomination

STAT News A new way to ease the organ shortage: ‘Regifting’ kidneys used in previous transplants

Los Angeles Times This engineered painkiller works like an opioid but isn’t addictive in animal tests

Washington Post Inside the secret U.S. stockpile meant to save us all in a bioterror attack

Associated Press First drug approved to combat most common inherited kidney disease