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Trump administration to resume risk adjustment payments. The Trump administration has decided to resume a program intended to prop up Obamacare insurers after taking heat for pausing the program. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a regulation late Tuesday that will resume payments under the risk adjustment program. Insurers had complained that the pause could cause further destabilization of Obamacare’s insurance marketplaces. Risk adjustment is intended to help share risk among Obamacare’s insurers on the individual market, which is used by people who don’t get insurance through a job or the government. An insurer who earns a certain amount of profits must pay into the program and an insurer with a certain threshold of losses gets funding from it. CMS paused the payments under the program earlier this month due to a court ruling back in February that found the formula used to calculate the payments was flawed. The final rule allows Health and Human Services to continue to collect and make payments for the 2017 benefit year. The regulation includes additional explanation surrounding the formula in an effort to satisfy the federal judge’s ruling.

Abortion views in all 50 states: Map. Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has triggered a national debate over the future of abortion law given that he’d be replacing retiring justice Anthony Kennedy, who had previously been a tie-breaking vote to uphold the 1973 ruling, which limited the ability of states to impose restrictions on abortion. While it would take many steps before it were to happen, if the ruling were struck down, the abortion issue would increasingly be fought out at the state level.  An analysis the state-by-state polling helps provide some insight into how abortion law could end up varying across the country in a post-Roe universe. Click here to view an interactive map.

Welcome to Philip Klein’s Daily on Healthcare, compiled by Washington Examiner Managing Editor Philip Klein (@philipaklein), Senior Healthcare Writer Kimberly Leonard (@LeonardKL) and Healthcare Reporter Robert King (@rking_19).  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.

House passes repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax. The House has voted to repeal Obamacare’s medical device tax, a measure that has support from the Trump administration. The bill passed with support from both parties by a 283-132 vote. One Republican, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined 131 Democrats in voting against the bill. If signed into law, the bill to repeal the tax, known as the Protect Medical Innovation Act, would end the 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that Congress has suspended several years in a row. The tax was one of several measures that were implemented under Obamacare to help offset the provisions in the healthcare law, but members of the industry have long pushed for repeal, saying it will cost jobs and stymie innovation, particularly for smaller businesses. Medical devices include items such as pacemakers, wheelchairs, hip implants, or surgery tools. The latest effort to resurface the repeal of the device tax was led by Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., and had 43 Democrats among its 269 co-sponsors.

Action now turns to the Senate. On the Senate side, the bill to repeal the tax is known as the No Taxation on Device Innovation Act, and was introduced by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both of Massachusetts. That version would offset revenues by ending tax breaks on oil companies. Other Democrats from states that have major biotech industries like Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith from Minnesota are likely to support ending the tax.

Device industry cheers a long-sought win. Industry groups praised the vote following the bill’s passage. “Manufacturers welcome the House’s strong, bipartisan vote to repeal Obamacare’s tax on medical devices, and we call on the Senate to act swiftly,” said Robyn Boerstling, vice president of infrastructure, innovation and human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. “During the two years this harmful tax was in effect, tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs disappeared, innovation stalled, and the cost of certain healthcare treatments requiring a medical device increased needlessly.”

Anthem enrollments drop but profits surge.​ The strong economy contributed to health insurer Anthem losing Medicaid enrollees during the second quarter, company executives said Wednesday. The fall in Medicaid enrollment, as well as in the Obamacare market, caused enrollment to fall by 888,000 people compared with the same time last year. Anthem made up for some of the offsets in enrollment by growth in the Medicare program, which increased by 254,00 members during the second quarter. Gail Boudreaux, the company’s CEO, said on a call with investors that Anthem plans to continue investing in this area. Despite the drop in enrollment, the investment in Medicare helped Anthem profits increase by 23 percent, to $1 billion, compared to $855 million at the same time last year. For the Obamacare market, company executives said. ​Anthem​ was likely to remain in the same states but perhaps expand into additional counties. “We are not looking to rescale the business,” Boudreaux said. “We are pleased with the performance.”

Senate panel approves bill to end pharmacy “gag clauses.” A Senate committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would ban “gag clauses” that prevent pharmacists from telling a consumer it is cheaper to buy a drug out of pocket than through their insurance. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee unanimously advanced four healthcare bills, setting them up for a Senate floor vote. One of the bills is the Patient’s Right to Know Drug Prices Act, which targets a “gag clause” inserted by insurers and drug middlemen into contracts with pharmacies. The legislation would prohibit the gag clauses in employer-sponsored plans and plans sold on the individual Obamacare market, which is used by people who don’t get insurance through a job or the government.

Majority believe Trump sabotaging Obamacare: poll. A majority of Americans think that President Trump is actively trying to make Obamacare fail, a new poll finds. The survey released Wednesday from the research firm Kaiser Family Foundation found that 56 percent believe Trump is trying to make the law fail and 32 percent think Trump is trying to make it work. Of the people who say that Trump is trying to make the law collapse, 47 percent believe that is a bad thing. A majority of respondents — 58 percent — also believe that Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress are responsible for problems associated with the law moving forward. The poll results come as Obamacare allies and Democrats charge that Trump and congressional Republicans have made moves to undermine the law.

FDA hit with bot-generated wave of fake comments on flavored vapor products. More than a quarter million comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration about flavored vapor products were fake, according to a watchdog group. The public consultation period for the FDA’s notice of proposed rulemaking that seeks to evaluate the purpose of vapor product flavors closed Thursday, after a 30-day extension, with at least 255,000 fake comments from a single Internet bot. More than 525,104 comments were submitted overall regarding flavors for vaping and e-cigarettes. Although fraudulent bot submissions are not uncommon in the regulation process during public consultation periods, seeing it at this magnitude is shocking, said Vapor Technologies Association Executive Director Tony Abboud.

AHIP supports health insurance tax repeal in letter to House leaders. America’s Health Insurance Plans wrote a letter of support to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for a bill that would suspend the health insurance tax for two years. The bill is receiving a vote later this week, and insurers say suspending the tax will save consumers roughly $400 a year in premiums. “To spare consumers from these burdensome costs, we encourage you to place a high priority on ensuring that a two-year suspension of the health insurance tax is signed into law,” the group wrote.

Bipartisan telehealth bill introduced in the House. Reps. Adrian Smith, R-Ne., Diane Black, R-Tenn., Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., Morgan Griffith, R-Va., and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. are introducing the Reducing Unnecessary Senior Hospitalizations, or “RUSH” Act, today. Health IT now says that the bill would reduce hospital admissions from skilled nursing facilities by allowing Medicare to selectively enter into value-based arrangements with medical groups to provide acute care at skilled nursing facilities using telehealth and on-site first responders.

Fauci to advocate for long-term therapies to keep HIV at bay. Dr. Tony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will say at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam today that finding a way to keep HIV at bay without needing to take medication every day deserves “vigorous pursuit.” Currently people with HIV take antiretroviral medications at least three times a day to prevent the illness from becoming AIDS. Different approaches being tried now involve intermittent therapies, while the other involve stimulating the immune system. View remarks live.

RUNDOWN

Axios Think drug prices are bad? Try hospital prices

The Hill Americans believe marijuana is less harmful than cigarettes: poll

NPR Pepperidge Farm recalls Goldfish crackers amid salmonella scare

STAT News IBM’s Watson supercomputer recommended ‘unsafe and incorrect’ cancer treatments, internal documents show

Wall Street Journal Congress passed VA bill but now debates how to pay for it

New York Times A vote expanded Medicaid in Maine. The governor is ignoring it

Washington Post Hospitals experiment in sedating patients without their consent raises ethical concerns

Associated Press AIDS drugs show more promise for preventing new infections