SIGN UP! If you’d like to continue receiving Washington Examiner’s Daily on Healthcare newsletter, SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://newsletters.washingtonexaminer.com/newsletter/daily-on-healthcare/

Over 100 House Democrats rally behind national healthcare plan. More than 100 House Democrats will introduce a healthcare plan today that would transition nearly everyone living in the U.S. onto a government-financed system in two years. “All we are saying is that there will be one point of payment and it will be the government,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the lead sponsor of the plan known as the Medicare for All Act, said in a call with reporters Tuesday. The proposal would make Medicare coverage more extensive than it is now and extend it to the whole population. Coverage would pay for emergency surgery, prescription drugs, mental health, long-term services, addiction treatment, and dental and eye care, all without co-pays. The program also would cover abortion, a controversial policy proposal that nearly caused Obamacare to fail. The bill would keep the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service agencies in place while covering almost every other U.S. citizen. It punts the question over whether to also cover people who are living in the U.S. illegally by turning it over to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Such an arrangement means that, under the law, each administration would have the power to change the rules about covering people who entered the U.S. illegally. “We have made our intent very clear: everybody in, nobody out,” Jayapal said, adding that she thought a future health secretary would support coverage regardless of immigration status.

The bill does not say how the healthcare system would be financed. Jayapal cited potential options such as a wealth tax, shifting what employers pay for private plans to the government, and repealing the tax law President Trump signed last year. “I have lots of ideas about how we can pay for this,” Jayapal said. “The question is not how we pay for this, but the question is: Where is the will to make sure every American has the healthcare they deserve and have the right to?” One study by the right-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that a similar plan would raise government spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, an estimate that is in line with an earlier study by the left-leaning Urban Institute.

Opinion: House Democrats decide that the Bernie Sanders plan to socialize healthcare didn’t go far enough

Welcome to Philip Klein’s Daily on Healthcare, compiled by Washington Examiner Executive Editor Philip Klein (@philipaklein), Senior Healthcare Writer Kimberly Leonard (@LeonardKL), and healthcare reporter Cassidy Morrison (@CassMorrison94). Email [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list.

Large industry groups oppose the Medicare for All Act. The projected spending on healthcare is less than what the U.S., including both the government and private entities, would spend under the current system by roughly $2 trillion, but it would come through cutting payments that hospitals and other providers were getting from private insurance by 40 percent. This is largely why the private insurance, hospital, doctor, and pharmaceutical lobbies have united against it. Lauren Crawford Shaver, executive director of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, which is a coalition of such industry groups, spoke out against the Medicare for All Act in a statement, saying it would “force every American off their existing coverage, put an end to the choice and control Americans currently have over their plans and treatments, fundamentally change Medicare as we know it, and subject patients to longer wait times and a lower quality of care.”

Alexander says GOP is moving past Obamacare. Republicans are focusing on areas of healthcare outside of Obamacare, Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, confirmed at an Atlantic event this morning. His committee will be addressing areas “where I can get results,” he said, and cited drug pricing as an example. “We have proved over eight years that’s hard to do on Obamacare,” he added, referring to efforts to repeal Obamacare and to the Obamacare stabilization bill that failed in the Senate.

Pallone says he still holds out hope that a deal can be reached on Obamacare. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, followed up Alexander’s comments on Obamacare by saying that he “hadn’t given up” on trying to shore up the healthcare law. He floated ideas such as funneling more government funds to the exchanges so people can receive subsidies at a lower cost to them. On the Medicare for All Act, Pallone at first said it was a “concept we should be looking at” but then proceeded to say it would be too costly and that the focus should be on fixing Obamacare and pushing back on the Trump administration’s actions on healthcare, which he said has “sabotaged” the system. Pallone is a supporter of a public option, a government coverage people could buy into that would compete against private plans.  

Conservatives rush to rescue Trump’s court pick after red flags raised on abortion. Conservative groups are rushing to the defense of Neomi Rao, Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia, after some Senate Republicans have indicated they may not vote to confirm her. Americans for Prosperity and Judicial Crisis Network are boosting their efforts to back Rao after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questioned her views on abortion. “Neomi Rao is fair, impartial, extremely qualified and has our full support,” AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement. “The D.C. Circuit is one of the most significant judicial appointments outside of the Supreme Court, and we will be aggressively mobilizing our grassroots to urge every senator to confirm her.” The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Rao’s nomination Thursday, but Hawley, a member of the panel, has signaled he’s unsure whether he’ll support her. Rao, he said, “does not have a strong record on life.” “I just want to make sure we put judges on the bench who respect life, who are going to protect life to the maximum extent they can under this current Supreme Court doctrine,” Hawley told radio host Marc Cox on Monday. Hawley told Axios on Sunday he “heard directly from at least one individual who said Rao personally told them she was pro-choice.”

GOP shifts its tone on Big Pharma. Senate Republicans on Tuesday displayed a shift in attitude toward pharmaceutical companies as they questioned seven top CEOs in a hearing about why their products have become so expensive, signaling they will work to pass new drug pricing laws. The shift comes as polling shows that prescription drug costs top voters’ concerns about healthcare and as headlines about soaring prices on lifesaving medicines permeate. Trump, too, is pushing to see change. While the hearing was devoid of shouting matches and executives came out largely unscathed, the issues Republicans raised suggested they have been getting an earful about the issue from constituents and from other parts of the healthcare industry.

Republicans questioned drugmakers over exclusivities, Trump actions, and why price hikes happen. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, pressed Abbvie, the maker of the arthritis drug Humira, about its patents, suggesting Republicans may be open to changing the exclusive rights that drug companies have to their products after they come to market. “I support drug companies recovering a profit … at some point that patent has to end, that exclusivity to end,” Cornyn said. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked whether a plan by the Trump administration to end rebates that insurers collect would help bring down list prices. Drug companies have praised the plan but they were unable to give Thune and other senators a guarantee that list prices would fall as a result. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., fired back at one drug executive’s proposed solution by saying, “That seems status quo and the status quo is not working.” Several senators shared personal stories about the drug hikes they have faced. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., noted that he had long supported drug companies and the medical innovations they bring. He shared that a medication he took went up by $90 this year. “When I can’t explain it, it’s tough … We have to get to the bottom of this so we can explain it,” he said.

Democrats were more willing to go on the offensive. Despite indications that Republicans are looking more closely at the rules governing the pharmaceutical industry, their questions were still less pointed than those of Democrats. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., for instance, asked executives whether they had used savings from the GOP tax law to lower prices. Pfizer was the only company to say it had. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the U.S. couldn’t continue to give drug companies “blank check” for their products. Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the committee, opened the hearing by blasting drug companies for “morally repugnant” practices that caused people not to be able to afford their medications. By the end of the hearing, he was unsatisfied with the executives’ answers, accusing them of “stonewalling on the key issues which is actually lowering drug prices.” “Drug prices are astronomically high because that’s where pharmaceutical companies and their investors want them,” the Oregon lawmaker said.

Washington state exchange enrollment falls by 4 percent. More than 200,000 people bought Obamacare coverage on the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, according to numbers the state put out Wednesday. The enrollment is 4 percent lower than it was last year, and a recent survey found that 37 percent of those who canceled their plans said it was because people decided the premiums were outside what they could afford. Fifty-three percent said they found an alternative, likely referring to coverage they get from a job. “Despite the very real challenges around affordability, enrollment through Washington Healthplanfinder remains relatively steady,”  Pam MacEwan, CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, said in a statement. “And while we weathered the storm this year, our consumers were again faced with sharp increases to both premium costs and deductibles. This reversal in growth reflects a serious trend in the growing number of consumers who are unable to find and enroll in affordable health coverage.”

Democrats move toward subpoenaing Trump administration on family separation. The Democrat-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday took a step toward issuing subpoenas against the Trump administration for documents related to family separations at the border. The committee voted 25-11 in support of a resolution authorizing subpoenas to Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security that direct those departments to produce lists of all children and parents who were separated from April 6, 2018, through June 20, 2018. Family separations occurred at the border after the Justice Department implemented its “zero tolerance” policy in April 2018.

Tim Kaine’s bishop ‘outraged’ at his vote against medical care for abortion survivors. Tim Kaine’s bishop, Barry Knestout, the head of the Richmond Diocese of which Kaine is a member, harshly rebuked the Virginia Democrat Tuesday for his vote against legislation that would clarify that babies who survive attempted abortions must receive medical care. The bill in question, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act introduced by Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., failed to reach the necessary 60-vote threshold to get closure with a 53-44 final tally. The bill was generally supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats, only three Democrats voting in favor. Democrats portrayed the bill as an attempt to limit abortion rights. “We are dismayed and outraged that Virginia’s U.S. Senators [Mark] Warner and Kaine voted against this critical life saving legislation,” Bishop Knestout said in a joint statement with Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington. “That this bill did not pass unanimously — let alone pass at all — is appalling and beyond comprehension.”

40 percent of women worry about getting or paying for birth control: Survey. Nearly 40 percent of women ages 18-44 said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that accessing birth control would become more difficult in 2019, according to a study from the left-leaning Urban Institute. Researchers used data from the Urban Institute’s 2018 Survey of Family Planning and Women’s Lives, with a sample of 2,115 women. Overall, 17.1 percent of women say they are very concerned about whether they would be able to securing or affording birth control and 13.7 percent perceive limits to their current access to timely and convenient birth control. These women are more likely to be under age 35, black, less educated, lower income, uninsured, and to report unmet birth control needs or less frequent birth control use than other women. While the study cannot pinpoint the cause of this fear, it theorizes that women are concerned about recent policy changes in states and by the Trump administration that affect about availability of provider services, prescriptions, and family planning.  

Baby development varies by state: Study. The state in which babies are born makes a difference in their development, according to a study and state ranking from Child Trends and ZERO TO THREE. The State of Babies Yearbook: 2019 compares national and state-by-state data on the well-being of infants and toddlers. It weighs the effects of poverty and racial discrimination among young children and their ability to receive resources and services. These effects appear early; at age 2, children in the lowest socioeconomic group already lag behind their peers on measures of language, cognitive abilities, and attachment.

RUNDOWN

NPR Cancer complications: confusing bills, maddening errors and endless phone calls.

The New York Times Senators draw on own experiences to chastise drug companies.

Stat Who shined and who sank: How seven executives fared in defending pharma.

ProPublica Numerous mistakes led to fatal blood transfusion at St. Luke’s in Houston, report finds.

The Hill Push for ‘Medicare for all’ worries centrist Dems