Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Congress is looking to hit the campaign trail

Congress is on course to wrap up its work on Capitol Hill before the end of September.

Fortune reports that yesterday the Senate by a 99-1 vote has joined the House in a passing a bill (H.R. 6, as amended) responding to the opioid crisis. Congressional leaders expect to release a consolidated bill on Friday which will be enacted early next week. On a related note, Opioid Watch tells us about a recent government report finding that
The number of new heroin users fell by more than half in 2017, according to the latest national drug survey, which was unveiled Friday. “One of the most important findings,” said SAMHSA chief Elinore McCance-Katz in announcing the results in a webcast, “is the very steep decline in new users of heroin from 2016.” New initiates to that drug dropped from 170,000 to 81,000.
Progress finally.

Per Federal News Radio, the Senate today approved a minibus appropriations conference report bill for defense, health, and education functions (H.R. 6157), by a 93-7 vote. The bill also includes a continuing mop-up appropriation measure to keep the government fully funded at least until December 7, 2018. Meanwhile the House and Senate conferees continue to work on the treasury and general government minibus which includes OPM and FEHB appropriations.

In other Capitol Hill news:

  • Fierce Healthcare reports that the Senate passed a bill (S. 2554) yesterday by a 98-2 vote that "would stop contracts between pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies from barring pharmacists from informing patients when they might pay less for a prescription out of their own pocket than if they used their insurance."
  • The Hill reports that a bipartisan group of powerful Senators has released a discussion draft of a bill to protect consumers against surprise bills in emergency care situations, e.g, the hospital is in-network but the contracted emergency care physicians group is out-of-network.  

No comments: