Analysis | What happened to Biden’s public option?

Today’s Edition: As part of the effort to put an abortion rights amendment on the Arkansas ballot this November. Federal regulators are warning a medical distributor not to sell unapproved syringes made in China. But first

Biden opted for the public option. Since taking office, he has not mentioned it.

In the 2020 election, then candidate Joe Biden and many of his congressional colleagues advocated loudly for a federal public option health insurance plan. It was framed, at the time, as part of their incoming administrations’ response to the pandemic.

Low-income Americans will be automatically enrolled in the public option at zero cost to them, though they can choose to opt out at any time, Democrats promised in their party platform.

But since Biden took office, they’ve been crickets. The president has not uttered the phrase public option since December 2020, according to factba.sewhich tracks your public comments.

Why the disappearing act? In a word: politics.

Out of the gate, you’re going to have a big, powerful lobby against public option hospitals, because providers have the most to lose — a lot of money, he said. Matthew Fiedlereconomist of the Brookings Institution which has studied payment disparities between insurance plans. The health care industry is the largest lobbying sector in Washington, with more than 132 million dollars spent annually for hospitals and nursing homes alone, according to OpenSecrets.

For those who have forgotten, the idea was to create a government-sponsored insurance plan to compete with commercial insurers under the Affordable Care Act. The concept, previously supported by the president barack obama, it did not make it into the final version of the ACA due to the opposition of almost all health professionals.

In theory, a structured public option like Medicare, Medicaid, or the military’s Tricare program could save billions in health care spending for both the federal government and consumers because (like existing federal plans) it would pay health care providers less than commercial insurers. Fiedler said the public option could save money, relative to commercial insurance, even if it paid up to twice Medicare’s rates.

And without having to make a profit, this plan could spend more money on patient care.

Unsurprisingly, insurers opposed the public option, but Fiedler said her hospital opposition is keeping it old-fashioned.

As an example, Fiedler points to Medicare drug price negotiations, another long-term Democratic priority. Biden made it to the finish line as part of his Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Congress didn’t want to fight the hospitals, but they’re willing to fight the drug companies, Fiedler said.

Bidens party has yet to come up with its official platform for the 2024 election, so perhaps the public option will appear again on its agenda. Spokesmen for his re-election campaign and the White House did not respond to emailed questions about it.

The idea still has many supporters: Led by Colorado, some states have tried to create their own versions, though their plans rely on commercial insurers to administer coverage. Insurers were able to close public option proposals in Connecticutand they have complained about it they would lose money under the Colorado proposal.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.

Within the long odds, there is pressure to undo the abortion ban in Arkansas

New this is me: After winning campaigns in both red and blue states, abortion rights activists face a test of the limits of their success in what is sometimes ranked as America’s most pro-life state, The posts Hannah Knowles reports

Key context: Arkansas has an almost total ban on abortion, with exceptions only for life-threatening. It’s also a rural state with high rates of poverty, unequal access to medical services and the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, making local options for abortion especially important, supporters say.

But the electoral proposal to legalize abortion during the first 18 weeks of pregnancy faces strong headwinds. Nearly a dozen groups have filed in the state to oppose the ballot measure, trying to keep it from meeting the roughly July 5 deadline. 90,000 signatures, according to officials.

Undeterred, Arkansans for Limited Government has forged ahead with a shoestring budget and about 500 volunteers. Some individual donors have helped the effort reach six figures in fundraising, according to organizers, who said they are looking to hire paid collectors to increase the pace of signatures.

It’s not clear the group can meet its July deadline, let alone run a statewide ad campaign in the face of fierce resistance. Notably, the effort has so far been largely overlooked by major groups funding abortion ballot measures across the country, a testament to the uncertainty of its success as well as divisions over strategy in the state. ruby red

Meanwhile, in North Carolina

Planned Parenthood affiliates are being deployed a 10 million dollars campaign aimed at mobilizing voters concerned about abortion access before the November election, Makiya Seminar reports for Associated Press.

The organizations aim to break the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina General Assembly, which imposed new abortion restrictions last year, and defeat the Republican candidate for governor. Mark Robinsonwho wants the law to be stricter.

FDA warns Cardinal Health about marketing unauthorized syringes

The Food and Drug Administration is warning Greetings cardinal do not market unauthorized devices.

the agency sent a letter to the medical distributor following an inspection of its Illinois facility last year, where federal regulators determined the company was marketing and distributing unapproved plastic syringes made in China. Jiangsu Shenli Medical Production Co.

• We take the FDA’s concerns seriously, a Cardinal spokesperson said in a statement. We are working to ensure that appropriate action is taken with the plastic syringes manufactured by Jiangsu Shenli Medical.

Key context: The warning comes after the FDA recommended last year for U.S. healthcare providers to stop using plastic syringes made in China, citing reports of breakage, leaks and other quality problems. The agencies are investigating the issue is ongoing.

In other news from the agencies

The Department of Health and Human Services has selected 20 states for the participation in two technical assistance programs intended to deal with the shortage of its direct care workforce.

The programs, managed by the Administration for Community Life‘s Direct Care Workforce Strategies Center, focus on improving the recruitment, training and retention of workers who provide home and community services to seniors and people with disabilities.

In a related effort, HHS and the Department of Labor released joint recommendations to build a stronger data infrastructure to better inform policies aimed at supporting the industry. They include implementing a nationally representative survey of the direct care workforce and the needs of adults with disabilities, as well as improving state data collection and information sharing.

• I’m new here: By 2022, 63.7% of Americans age 65 and older had a dental visit in the last 12 months. Older adults with diabetes, heart disease, or those in fair or poor health were less likely than their counterparts to have dated, according to the National Health Interview Survey.
• Genetic traces of the avian influenza virus have been found in 1 out of every 5 samples of pasteurized milkthe FDA said yesterday, maintaining its confidence that the domestic supply remains safe to consume.
• GlaxoSmithKline has filed a federal lawsuit against Pfizer and BioNTechalleging patent infringement related to the messenger RNA technology used in its coronavirus vaccines, Blake Brittain reports for Reuters.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in response to industry claims that a new minimum staffing mandate is unworkable.

How vampire facials at an unlicensed spa left three women with HIV (By Fenit Nirappil | The Washington Post)

Long ER waits plague understaffed hospitals, affecting older adults (By Judith Graham | KFF Health News via CNN)

Walgreens to help bring cell and gene therapies to patients as it expands specialty pharmacy services (By Annika Kim Constantino | CNBC)

See you all on Monday, and thanks for reading.