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Trump gives thumbs down to Idaho. The Trump administration struck down Idaho’s bid to offer Obamacare plans that don’t comply with the law’s requirements. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told state officials Thursday that they cannot sell plans that violate the law’s requirements that plans sold on the exchanges meet quality requirements including covering essential health benefits and not charging sick people more money. “CMS is committed to working with states to give them as much flexibility as permissible under the law to provide their citizens the best possible access to healthcare,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said. “However, the Affordable Care Act remains the law” and that CMS believed Idaho’s plan would be “failing to substantially enforce” the law. Experts had warned that giving Idaho the power to sell plans that don’t comply with Obamacare could cause a major ripple effect as other states could follow suit. Obamacare advocates pounced on the news. “When painted into a corner, the Trump administration was forced to agree with the lawyers that Idaho’s wildly illegal proposal was doomed to fail in the courts,” said Brad Woodhouse, campaign director for Obamacare advocacy group Protect Our Care.

Idaho’s top insurance commissioner doesn’t think this is the end. The state’s top insurance regulator took the news pretty well. “We do not read the letter as a conclusion nor a decision,” said Dean Cameron, the state’s insurance commissioner. Cameron recently told the Washington Examiner that challenging a denial in court could be an option. The state’s proposal would have allowed insurers to sell policies that can charge more money based on a pre-existing illness if the customer didn’t have coverage the previous year. It also would not require coverage for children’s vision or dental care and would require that only one plan offer maternity care. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Idaho sought to sell the plans on the state’s Obamacare exchange. Idaho’s Blue Cross’ outside counsel argued to HHS that states had some latitude to change the health insurance parts of Obamacare. The counsel argued that the proposal would help enforce Obamacare “substantially” and that the deterioration of the law’s exchanges forced the state to act.

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Watchdog group sues CMS to get records on conflict of interest concerns. The group American Oversight sued the Trump administration to learn whether Verma violated ethics rules by working on issues related to her former consulting clients. Verma used to head the healthcare consulting firm SVC Inc., which had contracts with states such as Indiana, Arkansas, Iowa and Kentucky. The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes after the agency failed to produce records in conjunction with five Freedom of Information Act requests. “The public has a right to know whether Administrator Verma is running CMS impartially, and with the administration refusing to make transparent basic records, we’re forced to go to court to shed light on her potential conflicts of interest,” the watchdog said. Verma sold the consulting firm to Health Management Associates in 2017 and apparently divested her interests in the company’s business, the lawsuit said.

Alex Azar defends refugee office at center of abortion furor. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday defended the Office of Refugee Settlement amid calls for the head of the division to step down after reports that he tried to stop illegal immigrant minors from getting abortions. Azar was asked during a meeting with reporters about whether the head of the office, Robert Lloyd, was following the law. Azar said the office, which assists in the relocation and well-being of refugees, has a tough job. “The Office of Refugee Resettlement has a very difficult task,” Azar said. “We are charged with these young women and men who are minors. They are put into our charge and custody and we have to look after their physical and mental well-being as well as any pregnant children the well-being of their unborn children.”

Azar mum on Medicaid expansion. Azar was asked about his thoughts on the Medicaid expansion in light of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney’s criticism of Virginia’s attempts to expand under Obamacare. Azar responded during the meeting with reporters that he wasn’t going to comment on Virginia’s Medicaid application since the legislature is still meeting on it. When asked if he shared Mulvaney’s sentiment that the expansion should be repealed, Azar responded that he doesn’t “have a position that I am going to articulate today on how we deal with Medicaid expansions.” Mulvaney sent out a statement this month that Medicaid was growing at an unsustainable rate. He also pointed to President Trump’s budget that called for the expansion to end. An HHS official told the Washington Examiner that the agency didn’t comment on individual Medicaid expansion applications.

Azar touts renewability for short-term health plans. Azar seemed pretty keen on providing guaranteed renewability for short-term health plans. He told reporters that HHS is looking for comments on guaranteed renewability for the health plans and checking whether it has the authority to do so. If HHS does have the authority, Azar said he would like to pursue it. Short-term health plans are currently not renewable, so if someone buys a plan and then gets sick, he can’t renew the plan when it ends. A short-term plan lasts for 90 days, but HHS recently released a new rule that would make them last for nearly 12 months. Critics have charged that short-term plans are a way around Obamacare’s insurance requirements since plans do not have to meet essential health benefits and can charge sicker people more money based on their health status.

Mississippi House passes bill banning abortions after 15 weeks, sending bill to governor. Mississippi is poised to become the state with the earliest ban on abortion, after the state House passed a measure Thursday banning the procedure at 15 weeks. The state Senate passed the legislation Tuesday, sending the 15-week abortion ban to the lower chamber for a vote. The measure then passed the House 75-34. Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, is expected to sign the legislation. Once Bryant signs the bill into law, Mississippi will be the only state making abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy illegal. Mississippi and 16 other states already ban abortions after 20 weeks. The legislation is likely to be challenged in court, as Diane Derzis, the owner of the state’s lone abortion clinic, has vowed to sue.

House panel sets two-day hearing on more than 20 opioid bills. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee has scheduled a two-day hearing for March 21-22 to consider more than 20 bills targeted at fighting the opioid epidemic. Among the bills to be considered include one requiring HHS to develop standards for doctors and hospitals to show a patient’s history of opioid addiction, a measure that would allow for research on ways to properly dispose of unused opioids, and expanded opioid research at the National Institutes of Health. The subcommittee held a hearing on eight other opioid-related bills last week, and another is planned. Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., has said he wants to move the bills for a vote by the full House before the Memorial Day recess.

Diane Black wants anti-abortion language to be added to omnibus. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., is pushing House GOP leadership to protect nurses who do not want to participate in abortion procedures in an upcoming must-pass spending bill. Black, the former chairwoman of the House Budget Committee who is running for Tennessee governor, sent a letter Thursday to House leadership asking for the Conscience Protection Act to be included in the two-year “omnibus” spending bill that will get a vote later this month. The language would codify federal protections that prevent a hospital or health facility from discriminating against a provider that has objections to participating in abortion procedures.

RUNDOWN

Kaiser Health News A health plan ‘down payment’ is one way states try retooling individual mandate

Morning Consult Administration eyes new direction for CMS innovation office

STAT News Republicans working to relax law that would put drug makers on the hook for more costs

Wall Street Journal Opioid crisis gets Washington’s attention

NPR The 30-year quest to tame the ‘wily’ cancer gene

Washington Post ‘Pharma bro’ faces high-stakes sentencing in fraud case

Reuters FDA panel backs Pfizer’s Xeljanz as bowel disease treatment

CNN CDC identifies a mystery cluster of deaths among dentists

Bloomberg Amazon isn’t the only retail giant trying to remake healthcare