Tuesday Tidbits

What a glorious summer evening. The FEHBlog is watching the Major League Baseball All Star Game on mute while listening to the 1:45 hr long recording of this afternoon's oral argument of the ACA constitutionality case before a Fifth Circuit Panel.  Here's a link to Fierce Healthcare's report on the argument.

Today, the Department of Health and Human Services began to implement the provision of the President's June 24 executive order requiring the creation of a health care quality roadmap.  Here's a link to HHS's announcement if its new Quality Summit which will craft the roadmap and a link to more background on the Quality Summit. Presumably at some point this HHS work will be extended to the FEHBP's quality program.

Healthcare Dive reports that the federal district court for the District of Columbia ruled yesterday that the Food and Drug Administration lacks the regulatory authority to require that prescription drug television advertisements display pricing.

HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar remain committed to improving drug price transparency.

"Although we are not surprised by the objections to transparency from certain special interests, putting drug prices in ads is a useful way to put patients in control and lower costs, and as seen from the President's executive order, we are working on many different avenues for delivering transparency,” she wrote in an emailed statement.