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House Democrats form ‘Medicare for All’ caucus ahead of 2018 midterm elections. At least one-third of House Democrats are formally pushing for the U.S. to adopt a government-funded healthcare system in which all residents of all ages would be covered under Medicare. Such a system doesn’t have enough supporters to pass Congress, but the push is happening ahead of the November midterm elections, and at a time when other factions of the party are urging for more incremental changes to the healthcare system that build off of Obamacare. Democrats announced on Thursday that they were forming a “Medicare for All” Caucus, which has 66 founding members and will be co-chaired by Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Appearing at a press conference outside the Capitol, lawmakers proclaimed that “healthcare is a right” and said that the current system failed to adequately address rising healthcare costs and left too many people without coverage or access to medicines. The goal of the new caucus will be to gather and present information about how a Medicare-run system would work, to study similar policies around the world, and to decide how such a system would be financed, Jayapal said.

One of the hurdles any socialized plan is going to encounter is that if it sets payment rates too low, it could drive doctors and hospitals out of business, thus limiting access. But if payment rates are set too high, it will drive up the cost of the program to staggering levels. In 2016 the liberal Urban Institute analyzed a single-payer plan released by the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and estimated it would cost $32 trillion over a decade.

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Short-term rule lands at the White House, OMB. A plan that would once again allow people to purchase short-term health insurance plans has landed at the Office of Management and Budget and the White House, where it will be reviewed and finalized before it is made public. The proposed plan would allow people to buy these plans for up to a year, as opposed to limiting them to three months as the Obama administration began doing toward the end of his term. The plans are expected to be less expensive that Obamacare’s offerings, though they wouldn’t be obligated to cover all customers regardless of health status nor would they be obligated to cover a full range of medical services.

Senate Democrats push to intervene in Obamacare lawsuit. Senate Democrats want to intervene in a lawsuit that would end Obamacare’s protections for pre-existing conditions after the Trump administration declined to defend the healthcare law. A group of Democratic senators introduced a resolution on Thursday that would have the Senate intervene in a lawsuit brought by Texas and 19 other states against Obamacare. The lawsuit would gut the law’s protections for pre-existing conditions. “I would hope that if you care about pre-ex conditions you should sign on to this resolution,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., at a press conference Thursday. The lawsuit charges that because last year’s tax law repealed the penalties for going without insurance, the individual mandate can no longer be justified as a constitutional exercise of Congress’s taxing power and must be struck down, along with the rest of the law.

​House moves to block DC’s penalty on the uninsured. ​The House voted 217-199 to block the nation’s capital from imposing its own “individual mandate.” With last year’s tax law, Congressional Republicans eliminated penalties for going uninsured. New Jersey and Vermont have passed laws to replace the mandate beginning in 2020. A mandate in Massachusetts that was law before Obamacare also has stayed in place. The District of Columbia mandate is set to begin in 2019 under a budget passed in June. D.C.’s penalty will not be the same as Obamacare’s, which was set at $695 a year or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher. Instead it would be decided each year by Sept. 30.

Senate panel to take up bill to ban pharmacy ‘gag clauses.’ A key Senate committee will consider a bill to that bans insurers from inserting “gag clauses” that forbid pharmacies from telling consumers of cheaper ways to buy pharmaceuticals. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on July 25 on a series of bills, among them the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act. The committee will decide whether to advance the bill to the full Senate. The bill, introduced initially back in March, would ban “gag clauses” for pharmacies. Sometimes, insurers or pharmacy benefit managers — middlemen who oversee drug plans for employer or union health plans — insert such clauses into contracts with pharmacies, barring the pharmacist from telling a consumer that it is cheaper to buy a drug out of pocket than through their insurance. The Trump administration already banned such “gag clauses” for Medicare prescription drug plans. However, the practice is still in use by private insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.

FDA seeks to boost use of cheaper alternatives to pricey biologic drugs. The Food and Drug Administration released an action plan Wednesday to increase the use of biosimilars, which are cheaper and similar versions of extremely expensive specialty drugs known as biologics. The FDA has approved 11 biosimilars, but only three are on the market due to a range of obstacles that include litigation from the brand name drug. So, the agency laid out a plan to get more biosimilars on the market as the Trump administration seeks to tackle high drug prices. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that if the market for biosimilars isn’t improved, then drugmakers wouldn’t pursue biosimilars.

Bill would give young people more Obamacare subsidies. Young adults would receive more government help to pay for Obamacare plans under a House bill introduced Wednesday. The Advancing Youth Enrollment Act, by Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., would aim to bring more people between the ages of 18 to 34 into the Obamacare marketplaces by increasing the amount of tax credits they receive to pay for health insurance premiums.

House panel advances emergency preparedness bill. The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act, or PAHPA, has advanced out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote. Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said the bill would “strengthen our preparedness and response systems to ensure we are ready for any and all threats that face our country and our citizens.” The legislation reauthorizes a program for five years and clarifies that a stockpile of drugs and other medical supplies warehoused by the government is to be a collaboration between the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, rather than under the sole control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

PETA wants plant-based drinks to drop the four-letter word milk. PETA and the dairy industry have found something to agree on. Both believe that the word “milk” should not be used to describe plant-based alternative drinks such as soy, almond, or coconut milk, a question the Food and Drug Administration will begin considering next week. “Healthy soy, almond, coconut, hemp, oat and hazelnut beverages deserve to be distinguished from the cow, goat and camel milk that are linked to prostate cancer, obesity, acne, mucoidal infections and hideous cruelty to animals,” said Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president. “To us, ‘milk’ is a four-letter word when used to mean the udder secretions of mothers whose babies are stolen from them by the greedy dairy industry.”

White House won’t back ‘legalization of all drugs’ in Mexico or ‘anywhere.’ White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that the Trump administration would not support anything that allows more drugs to come into the United States in response to a question about possible drug policy changes in Mexico. Mexico’s incoming leftist president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, reportedly gave his interior minister-designate “carte blanche” to consider eliminating drug penalties in a counterintuitive bid to reduce drug-linked violence.

“I don’t have a specific policy announcement on that front,” Sanders said at the daily White House press briefing. “However, I can say that we would not support the legalization of all drugs anywhere and certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that would allow more drugs to come into this country.”

FDA to explore importing drugs from overseas to lower prices. The Trump administration wants to explore how to safely import pharmaceuticals from other countries in order to counteract major hikes in the price of drugs. Such a policy would represent a major shift from current procedure. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requested on Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration establish a working group to examine safe importation. The request is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to tackle high drug prices, a growing driver of healthcare costs in the U.S.

No, HHS doesn’t want you to buy drugs from Canada. This effort would be different from re-importation of drugs that have been exported to Canada and subjected to Canadian price controls, a reform popular among Democrats and some Republicans. The FDA has been hesitant to explore re-importation because of safety concerns, specifically concerns surrounding fraudulent online pharmacies that may peddle counterfeit or substandard drugs. Some lawmakers, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have touted re-importation as a key way of lowering drug prices, but bipartisan opposition, usually citing safety concerns, has repeatedly prevented the idea from moving forward in Congress.

RUNDOWN

Washington Post There’s a Medicaid ‘subsidy cliff’ healthcare officials are worried about

Axios The White House’s next move on drug prices

The Hill Poll: Half of Americans find healthcare harder to afford this year

Politico Trump promised them better, cheaper healthcare. It’s not happening

USA Today Doctors, hospitals sue patients who post negative comments, reviews on social media

Bloomberg Trump plan to lower drug prices moves forward on several fronts

NPR A spike in liver disease deaths among young adults fueled by alcohol

CNN Valsartan recall: 4 things patients should know