"I believe there is a path forward. Our bipartisan negotiations on near-term health care reforms showed just how much agreement there really is among Democrats and Republicans about what we should do over the next two years to help people pay less for better care. There's every reason to focus on that common ground again." —Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

• Trump Administration Defends Plan to Lower Prescription Drug Prices  New York Times by Robert Pear — The Trump administration hit back on Monday against critics of President Trump's plan to reduce prescription drug prices, saying his ideas would be far more effective than remedies championed by Democrats. Democrats have long supported two proposals that Mr. Trump endorsed during the 2016 presidential campaign. The government, they say, should directly negotiate with drug manufacturers to obtain lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. And consumers, they say, should be allowed to import pills from Canada and certain other developed countries where brand-name drugs often cost less.
  
  
• GOP Chairman Plans Hearings on Trump Drug Pricing Proposals  The Hill by Peter Sullivan — House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Tuesday that he plans to conduct hearings on some of President Trump's new proposals to bring down drug prices. Brady said it is too early to tell if the committee will move legislation on the issue, but said he wanted to consider the ideas. "I think there's some very good ideas in that proposal and some very thoughtful ones that we need to be airing out," Brady told reporters.
  
  
• Federal Dashboard Shows Medicare Drug Costs Soaring  Bloomberg News by Robert Langreth and Anna Edney — The U.S spent 60 percent more on drugs for Medicare patients in 2016 than it did in four years earlier, according to newly released federal data, countering pharmaceutical industry arguments that prescription medicine represents only a small and stable portion of health care costs. Among top-selling drugs in the program, the per-unit cost of Sanofi's Renvela, which is used by dialysis patients, climbed by an average of 21.6 percent between 2012 and 2016, the most recent year for which data are available. Unit costs for AbbVie Inc.'s Humira, a blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug, rose at an average pace of 18 percent a year during the same period, according to the figures released Tuesday by the Trump administration.
  
  
• F.D.A. Names and Shames Drug Makers to Encourage Generic Competition  New York Times by Sheila Kaplan — Pharmaceutical companies that spend billions of dollars to develop new drugs do not want competitors to profit from inexpensive generic copies of blockbuster medicines. To avoid rivals, they fight for patent extensions, seek new uses for old products and, sometimes, prevent generic drug companies from obtaining samples. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, calls this "gaming the system," and has vowed to stop it as part of the government's campaign to lower drug prices. On Thursday, the F.D.A. took a new tack and began posting a list of makers of brand-name drugs that have been the target of complaints, to persuade them to "end the shenanigans," in the commissioner's words.
  
  
• Vermont Positioned for Cheaper Canadian Prescription Drugs  Associated Press — Vermont on Wednesday became the first state to create a program to import more affordable prescription drugs from Canada, but it's not clear whether it will get required federal approval. Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said he supported the legislation because it could reduce costs for many Vermonters. "I'm in favor of doing whatever we can do reduce cost for Vermonters," Scott said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services still needs to certify the program.

• Number of Uninsured Americans on the Rise, Especially in Texas, New Study Finds  Houston Chronicle by Jenny Deam — The historic gains in Texas and the rest of the nation are now slipping away as the uninsured rate starts to rise again, a new national health care report has found. The rate of working age adults without health coverage — those between age 19 and 64 — has ticked up to about 15.5 percent so far in 2018, up from 12.7 percent in 2016, according to the latest Commonwealth Fund tracking survey released this month. That translates to about 4 million people nationwide once covered who no longer are insured, the survey found.
  
  
• Trump's Plan for Cheaper Health Insurance Could Have Hidden Costs  New York Times by Robert Pear — President Trump's plan to expand access to skimpy short-term health insurance policies, as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, would affect more people and cost the government more money than the administration estimated, an independent federal study says. The study, by Medicare's chief actuary, suggests that the new policies would appeal mainly to healthy people, including many who have had comprehensive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Those remaining in Affordable Care Act marketplaces "would be relatively less healthy," Mr. Spitalnic said, and as a result, the average premiums for those insurance policies would increase...The Trump administration estimated the extra cost to the federal government at $96 million to $168 million a year. But the chief actuary, whose independence is protected by federal law, estimates that the rule proposed by the administration could increase federal spending by $1.2 billion next year and by a total of $38.7 billion over 10 years.

• Maryland Announces Agreement on All-Payer Health Model  Associated Press by Brian Witte — Maryland officials on Monday announced federal approval of a new contract for the state's unique all-payer health care model. Maryland is the only state that can set its own rates for hospital services, and all payers must charge the same rate for services at a given hospital. The policy has been in place since the 1970s, though Maryland modernized its one-of-a-kind Medicare waiver four years ago to move away from reimbursing hospitals on a fee-for-service basis to a fixed budget. "The new Maryland Model will expand health care access and affordability — and ultimately improve quality of life — for Marylanders, especially those with chronic and complex medical conditions," said Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican.

• As an Insurer Resists Paying for 'Avoidable' ER Visits, Patients and Doctors Push Back New York Times by Reed Abelson, Margot Sanger-Katz & Julie Creswell — To rein in emergency medicine costs, Anthem is reviving an old, contentious tactic: pushing back on patients who visit the emergency room (ER) for ailments deemed minor. Anthem denied thousands of claims last year under its "avoidable ER program," according to a sample of ER bills analyzed by the American College of Emergency Physicians. The program, which Anthem has been rolling out in a handful of states in recent years, reviews claims based on the final diagnosis of patients. Emergency room physicians say that, last year, the company did not routinely request medical records for denied patients, and therefore could not review the symptoms that brought them to the emergency room. Anthem says it is now reviewing such records before issuing denials. "The costs of treating non-emergency ailments in the ER has an impact on the cost of health care for consumers, employers and the health care system as a whole," Jill Becher, a company spokeswoman, said in an email. But doctors and consumer advocates argue that the policy forces patients to diagnose their own illness, and may discourage people with serious problems from seeking care.

• Trump Thrusts Abortion Fight into Crucial Midterm Elections  Associated Press by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Jill Colvin — The Trump administration acted Friday to bar taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions, energizing its conservative political base ahead of crucial midterm elections while setting the stage for new legal battles. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent its proposal to rewrite the rules to the White House, setting in motion a regulatory process that could take months. Scant on details, an administration overview of the plan said it would echo a Reagan-era rule by banning abortion referrals by federally funded clinics and forbidding them from locating in facilities that also provide abortions. Planned Parenthood, a principal provider of family planning, abortion services and basic preventive care for women, said the plan appears designed to target the organization. "The end result would make it impossible for women to come to Planned Parenthood, who are counting on us every day," said executive vice president Dawn Laguens. But presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News that the administration is simply recognizing "that abortion is not family planning. This is family planning money."

Editor: Peter Van Vranken