“President Joe Biden signed a short-term spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown starting Sunday after a dramatic turn of events Saturday that saw the House quickly pivot to bipartisanship.
“Hours before the midnight deadline, the Senate voted 88-9 to clear the House-passed, 48-day funding patch, which generally mirrors the Senate version except for one major omission: There’s no military or economic aid for Ukraine, unlike the Senate bill, which had $6 billion.
Largely in reaction to this action, eight Republican members of Congress, joined by all of the Democrat members, voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R CA) as Speaker. The House is expected to vote for a new Speaker on October 11.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced that
“[A]ll 10 drug companies whose drugs were selected for price negotiation with Medicare for the first cycle of the program have decided to participate in those negotiations. These companies manufacture some of the costliest and most commonly used prescription drugs.
On September 29, U.S. District Judge John Bates vacated a Trump-era Affordable Care Act rule permitting health plans to use copay assistance accumulators. These accumulators prevent manufacturer assistance used to pay cost-sharing for expensive drugs from counting towards out-of-pocket maximums. Here is a link to Judge Bates’ opinion. The s government, which is the defendant in the case, has the right to appeal this final judgment.