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Tag: Senate

  • Big Pharma Tries To Slip Benefit Into Senate Opioid Package

    Big Pharma Tries To Slip Benefit Into Senate Opioid Package

    “Big Pharma is trying to hijack the bill and turn it into a giant pharmaceutical company bailout,” said Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota).

    Pharmaceutical companies are attempting to inject $4 billion in savings for themselves into opioid legislation being considered in Congress. 

    A package of bills meant to address the opioid epidemic have passed both the House and Senate, and the two bodies are now working together to craft a version that both can agree on.

    The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, has tried to get a clause added to the bill that would reduce the discount that pharmaceutical companies need to offer Medicare beneficiaries whose spending on drugs falls into the coverage gap, according to The New York Times.  

    “We have a good bipartisan opioids bill and we need to get it signed into law. But now Big Pharma is trying to hijack the bill and turn it into a giant pharmaceutical company bailout,” Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) said in a Twitter post.

    Right now, pharmaceutical companies are required to discount brand-name drugs 50% for people in the coverage gap. Next year, the discount is set to increase to 70%. The increased discount was initially designed to reduce federal spending on Medicare’s drug benefit by $7.7 billion through 2027.

    However, after the law was passed increasing the discount, the Congressional Budget Office raised its estimate of the savings to $11.8 billion. Because of this, PhRMA would like the discount reduced to cover only the $7.7 billion savings, calling the updated level a “technical error.” 

    The AARP said that PhRMA’s proposal “will increase prescription drug costs for older Americans while providing a windfall of billions of dollars to the drug industry.”

    The prescription drug discount has nothing to do with the opioid crisis—but because there is broad bipartisan support for passing the opioid legislation quickly, PhRMA is trying to slip its desired changes into the bill while it has momentum, the Times noted. 

    “We are focused on ensuring Medicare Part D is secure for the future by correcting a technical error” by the Congressional Budget Office, said Stephen J. Ubl, the president and chief executive of PhRMA.

    However, most people outside PhRMA disagree. 

    “In the context of the current debate, I would not roll back the drug discounts,” said Mark E. Miller, the former executive director of a federal commission that advises Congress on Medicare. “We need broader changes in the structure of Medicare’s drug benefit. If the discounts are rolled back, patients and taxpayers should get something in return, to bring more competition to the market and drive down drug prices.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Senate Passes Sweeping Opioid Legislation, Treatment Advocates Unimpressed

    Senate Passes Sweeping Opioid Legislation, Treatment Advocates Unimpressed

    “None of the bills include providing the one thing communities hit by the opioid crisis need most: funding,” says one treatment advocate.

    A bipartisan effort to stem the opioid crisis, while impressive in scope, does not have what it takes to stem the national opioid crisis, say treatment advocates.

    On Monday (Sept. 17), the Senate passed a package of 70 bills—racking up a cost of $8.4 billion—with a 99-to-1 vote to address various aspects of the opioid crisis. The lone dissenter was Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

    The goal was to tackle the opioid crisis from multiple angles—like expanding access to treatment and thwarting shipments of illicit drugs from abroad—but not everyone is impressed with the expansive legislation.

    Joy Burwell, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which represents American health care organizations that deliver mental health and substance use disorder services, expressed her organization’s disappointment that “Congress missed this opportunity to make a meaningful, long-term investment in our nation’s addiction treatment system.”

    One way to accomplish this, Burwell says, would be to include the the Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Expansion Act, a bill that would expand a current program that has shown success in improving access to addiction treatment services.

    The package of bills passed in the Senate, however, falls short of their expectations. “None of the bills include providing the one thing communities hit by the opioid crisis need most: funding,” wrote Burwell in a statement. “Nor do they offer a comprehensive solution to the country’s addiction crisis.”

    The legislation package includes various measures intended to fight substance abuse. They include expanding access to opioid-addiction medication (like buprenorphine); funding recovery centers that provide temporary housing, job training, and other support during a transition to recovery; expanding the scope of mental health professionals where they are in short supply; expanding first responder naloxone programs; and preventing illicit drugs from being shipped via the US Postal Service.

    Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio admitted that the legislation does have missing pieces. “It doesn’t include everything all of us want to see but it has important new initiatives and it’s a step in the right direction,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “Congress is committing itself to actually putting politics aside. It’s not just bipartisan—I think it’s nonpartisan.”

    According to the Post, the House passed a similar measure in June. Now the two chambers will go over the differences before sending the package off to Trump.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Senate Considers Opioid Crisis Bill, But Critics Say It Isn’t Enough

    Senate Considers Opioid Crisis Bill, But Critics Say It Isn’t Enough

    “A little drama for little substance,” said one addiction advocate familiar with the bill. 

    The Senate is preparing to pass a bill to address the opioid epidemic, but critics say that the legislation skirts around the most important — and contentious — issues that could help change the way that opioid addiction is handled. 

    “A little drama for little substance,” one addiction advocate familiar with the bill told STAT News. 

    The bill addresses treatment and prevention, according to a copy reviewed by STAT. There are provisions that will better equip law enforcement to detect fentanyl being shipped in the mail system and that will help develop a have a better disposal system for unused opioids, in order to reduce the amount of opioids on the street. In addition, there are provisions to expand treatment by easing access to medication-assisted treatment with buprenorphine, training doctors to screen for substance use disorder and increasing access to treatment via telemedicine. 

    However, treatment advocates say that the bill will do little to affect how treatment is delivered because it does not take enough bold steps to change the status quo. 

    “Overdose rates continue to rise, and our response is still falling short given the mammoth size of the problem,” said Andrew Kessler, the founder of Slingshot Solutions, a behavioral health consulting group. “We are in the early phases of our response to this epidemic, and I can only hope that this bill is the first of many we can pass.”

    One big change that has a chance of passing is repealing the IMD exclusion, which prevents treatment centers with more than 16 beds from receiving Medicaid payments.

    An opioid response bill passed in June repealed the exclusion, but only for treatment for opioid and cocaine addiction.

    Despite the fact that the current Senate bill doesn’t mention the exclusion, Ohio Senator Rob Portman said that he is hopeful a repeal will be included in the final bill. He said that leadership has agreed on the repeal, but could not gather enough votes. 

    “We’ve worked out an agreement that I think most leadership on both sides agree with, but we weren’t able to get the signoff from everybody,” Portman said.

    The Senate bill also includes a call for the development of best practices in disclosing a patient’s history with substance abuse. The House bill would allow a history of addiction treatment to be disclosed without a patient’s expressed permission, but Senate lawmakers are concerned that this could lead to breaches of privacy and stigma. 

    With the coming November election, many lawmakers are hesitant to vote on anything controversial, meaning that the bill may languish. However, some Senators are pushing to make sure it gets a vote this month. 

    “As soon as both parties agree, we can have a roll call vote next week. When we do that, it’ll get virtually unanimous support, and then we’ll work with the House and put the bills together,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who has spearheaded the bill. 

    View the original article at thefix.com