Senate approves Inflation Reduction Act, clinching long-delayed health and climate bill Some healthcare implications (in addition to climate control measures): “The prescription drug pricing reforms aim to help cut costs for seniors enrolled in Medicare. It caps their out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 annually, while allowing the U.S. government to negotiate the price of a small set of medicines beginning in 2026. The landmark proposal is expected to save elderly Americans money and achieve billions in savings for Washington over the next decade. Pharmaceutical giants, which forcefully opposed the bill, also would be required to pay “rebates” to the federal government if they raise Medicare drug prices beyond the rate of inflation.
But Democrats did not accomplish everything they sought. An attempt to lower and cap the price of insulin, for example, faltered after Republicans on Sunday stripped it from the bill. Their opposition appeared to doom the plan for the remainder of the year, because a bipartisan attempt to reduce the cost of the lifesaving diabetes drug previously failed to secure GOP support…
The bill also includes $64 billion to stave off health insurance premium increases for about 13 million Americans who buy coverage through state and federal exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. These beneficiaries currently receive discounted coverage under a coronavirus-era program set to expire this year, threatening them with premium increases into hundreds of dollars next month.”
About Covid-19
COVID DATA TRACKER WEEKLY REVIEW “As of August 3, 2022, the current 7-day moving average of daily new cases (117,351) decreased 7.3% compared with the previous 7-day moving average (126,537). A total of 91,676,264 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States as of August 3, 2022.”
And globally: COVID cases drop 9% globally last week, deaths stable
BioNTech expects Omicron-adapted vaccine deliveries as soon as October”BioNTech expects to begin deliveries of two Omicron-adapted vaccines as soon as October, which will help spur demand in the fourth quarter, the German biotech firm said on Monday as it reaffirmed its vaccine-revenue forecast for the year.
Demand for the vaccine, 3.6 billion doses of which have been shipped globally, is waning as most people in the Western world have received three or four shots already.”
In a related story: With COVID vaccine demand in free fall, BioNTech's revenue plummets nearly 50% in second quarter “After four consecutive quarters in which revenue topped 5 billion euros ($5.1 billion)—nearly all of it attributed to sales of its Pfizer-partnered COVID-19 vaccine—BioNTech is coming to grips with a decline in demand for the shot, known commercially as Comirnaty.
And the fall is coming quicker than expected. On Monday, the German company reported revenue of 3.2 billion euros ($3.3 billion) for the second quarter. It was a 40% decline from the same period last year and nearly a 50% drop from the company's first quarter revenue figure of 6.4 billion euros.”
Post–COVID-19 Symptoms and Conditions Among Children and Adolescents — United States, March 1, 2020–January 31, 2022 “Compared with patients aged 0–17 years without previous COVID-19, those with previous COVID-19 had higher rates of acute pulmonary embolism (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.01), myocarditis and cardiomyopathy (1.99), venous thromboembolic event (1.87), acute and unspecified renal failure (1.32), and type 1 diabetes (1.23), all of which were rare or uncommon in this study population.”
About health insurance
CVS Plans to Bid for Signify Health “CVS Health Corp. is seeking to buy Signify Health Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, as the drugstore and insurance giant looks to expand in home-health services.
Signify Health is exploring strategic alternatives including a sale, The Wall Street Journal reported this past week. Initial bids are due this coming week and CVS is planning to enter one, some of the people said. Others also are in the mix, they said, and CVS could face competition from other managed-care providers and private-equity firms.
There is no guarantee any of them will reach a deal for Signify, which has a market value of around $4.7 billion after its shares rose on the news of a potential sale.”
Analysis of Recent National Trends in Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment “After declines in enrollment from 2017 through 2019, preliminary data for April 2022 show that total Medicaid/CHIP enrollment grew to 88.3 million, an increase of 17.0 million from enrollment in February 2020 (23.9%), right before the pandemic and when enrollment began to steadily increase (Figure 1).1Increases in enrollment may reflect changes in the economy, changes in policy (like recent adoption of the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act), and the temporary continuous enrollment requirement created by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).”
The article has great graphics displaying trends.
About pharma
The most significant FDA citations of 2021-2022 FYI
How 6 drugmakers fared in Q2 FYI
Jury finds MN pharmacist did not discriminate in denying emergency contraception “An Aitkin County jury on Friday found that a central Minnesota pharmacist did not discriminate when he refused to provide emergency contraceptives to a woman in 2019.
Andrea Anderson of McGregor Minn., sought to fill her prescription for Ella, which is used to stop a pregnancy before it starts, after a condom broke during intercourse.
She had the prescription sent to a nearby Thrifty White pharmacy, but when she called to confirm, pharmacist George Badeaux told her he would not fill it due to ‘personal reasons.’
According to the lawsuit, he said a colleague might be willing to fill it, but with a snowstorm imminent that person may not make it into work. Anderson got the prescription filled in Brainerd, but it required a 100-mile drive round trip in a snowstorm that allegedly took Anderson more than three hours.”
About the public’s health
Over half of known human pathogenic diseases can be aggravated by climate change “It is relatively well accepted that climate change can affect human pathogenic diseases; however, the full extent of this risk remains poorly quantified. Here we carried out a systematic search for empirical examples about the impacts of ten climatic hazards sensitive to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on each known human pathogenic disease. We found that 58% (that is, 218 out of 375) of infectious diseases confronted by humanity worldwide have been at some point aggravated by climatic hazards; 16% were at times diminished. Empirical cases revealed 1,006 unique pathways in which climatic hazards, via different transmission types, led to pathogenic diseases. The human pathogenic diseases and transmission pathways aggravated by climatic hazards are too numerous for comprehensive societal adaptations, highlighting the urgent need to work at the source of the problem: reducing GHG emissions.”
Abortion law in Indiana leads to fallout for state, politics “Indiana’s new sweeping ban on abortion produced immediate political and economic fallout Saturday, as some of the state’s biggest employers objected to the restrictions, Democratic leaders strategized ways to amend or repeal the law, and abortion rights activists made plans to arrange alternative locations for women seeking procedures.”