Washington Roundup: September 20, 2024

Congress is scheduled to be in session through September 27 at which point the legislators hit the campaign trail full time until a lame duck session likely is held beginning after election day.  

The American Medical Association’s public website explains various Medicare payment reform laws for its members.

Healthcare Dive lets us know,

• “Cigna is following through on promises to more aggressively defend its pharmacy benefit manager.”

• “On Tuesday, the healthcare company’s PBM, Express Scripts, sued the Federal Trade Commission over the agency’s recent report showing how the drug middlemen could be contributing to rising drug prices, calling the report “unfair, biased, erroneous, and defamatory.”

• “The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the FTC to withdraw the report and recuse FTC Chair Lina Khan from further action against Express Scripts.”

• “We don’t take this step lightly, but … we cannot let the FTC’s unlawful actions and false information stand,” Andrea Nelson, Cigna’s chief legal officer, said in a statement.”

The American Hospital Association News points out,

• “The Health Resources and Services Administration Sept. 17 told Johnson & Johnson that the company’s publicly announced plans to implement a 340B rebate model “violates J&J’s obligations under the 340B statute, and HRSA expects J&J to cease implementation of it.”  

• “Because J&J’s rebate proposal, if implemented, violates J&J’s obligations under the 340B statute, it subjects J&J to potential consequences, such as termination of J&J’s Pharmaceutical Pricing Agreement (PPA),” HRSA wrote Sept. 17. In addition, HRSA told J&J that the 340B statute provides for “[t]he imposition of sanctions in the form of civil monetary penalties” on “any manufacturer with an agreement under this section that knowingly and intentionally charges a covered entity a price for purchase of a drug that exceeds the maximum applicable price under subsection (a)(1).”

Per MedCity News,

• “A new Mercer report predicts there will be a national surplus of about 30,000 nurses by 2028. Though an overall surplus is projected nationally, there will still be significant shortages of nursing labor in a handful of states, as well as most of the country’s rural areas. To solve this issue, providers need to recruit from wider labor pools, minimize nurses’ nonclinical tasks and prioritize creating a more supportive work environment.”