Thursday Thoughts

Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued their final Medicare Advantage and Part D Drug Pricing rule and it does not include the anxiety inducing provision to lower prescription drug prices by doing away with prescription drug rebates.  Part I.D. to the rule's preamble explains, "We sought comment on the possibility of adopting a new definition of “negotiated price” under which plan sponsors would be required to pass through all pharmacy price concessions at the point of sale. We will carefully review all input received from stakeholders on this issue [nearly 8,000 public comments in total] as we continue our efforts to meaningfully address rising prescription drug costs for beneficiaries."  Here's a link to the CMS fact sheet on the final rule.

Govexec.com this evening shared with the public a May 16, 2019, Office of Management and Budget letter to the heads of Congress proposing legislation to dismantle OPM. In pertinent part,

The primary purpose of the legislative proposal is to authorize the transfer of the vast majority of the current functions and resources of OPM to GSA, including Human Resources Solutions, Information Technology, Retirement, Health and Insurance Services. GSA will create a new Personnel Service to house the human resources and employee lifecycle management shared service offerings. Agencies will benefit from GSA helping them to obtain more strategic and comprehensive support for their needs.

A bi-partisan group of Senators including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R LA), a physician who sits on the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, introduced a bill to stop surprise billing. It's a different approach from the House bi-partisan proposal discussed here last week as it covers all surprise situations, not just emergency cases, and it allows for independent dispute resolution.  The bill would apply to the FEHBP. The FEHBlog does expect a bill on this topic to enacted this year.