Overnight Health Care: Dems blame ‘sabotage’ as ObamaCare enrollment slows | Conservative groups oppose Trump drug price measure | CVS, Aetna close $70B merger
Welcome to Wednesday’s Overnight Health Care.
ObamaCare’s open enrollment period is more than halfway over and numbers are down. Democrats are blaming Trump.
Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wants to revive a bipartisan effort to stabilize the health law, and CVS and Aetna have completed their multi-billion dollar mega merger.
We’ll start with new ObamaCare enrollment numbers:
Top Dems blame ‘sabotage’ as ObamaCare enrollment slows
ObamaCare enrollment so far is lagging behind last year by about 11 percent, and Democrats are blaming President Trump.
“While there are still two weeks remaining in Open Enrollment, these lagging numbers show that Republicans’ sabotage of our nation’s health care system is working,” said Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the incoming chairmen of committees overseeing the Affordable Care Act.
{mosads}The Trump administration announced earlier Wednesday that 500,437 people signed up for ObamaCare coverage in the fourth week of the sign-up period, which ends Dec. 15.
Experts say that actions taken by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans will reduce enrollment, though the extent remains to be seen. For example, 2019 is the first year that the mandate to have coverage will not be in effect after Republicans repealed it in the tax law last year.
Caveat: The sign-up period is not over until Dec. 15, and there is usually a surge in enrollments in the final days.
Remember Alexander-Murray? Murray wants to try again
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Wednesday called for reviving bipartisan efforts to reach a deal to fix ObamaCare after an agreement she was part of collapsed last year.
“Mr. Chairman, I’m really hopeful that we can revive discussions in the new Congress and find a way past the ideological standoffs of the past,” Murray said to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), her Republican partner in forging last year’s deal, at a hearing on health care costs.
The deal last year, which came to be known as Alexander-Murray, sought to lower premiums and stabilize the ObamaCare markets, but was stalled for months amid the bitter partisan divide over the health law and a dispute about including abortion restrictions on the funding in the bill.
Alexander on Wednesday expressed skepticism about the ability to reach a new agreement, but said he is willing to try if Murray wants to.
“We can revisit the so-called Alexander-Murray proposal if you would like,” Alexander said, but added that Democrats opposed the previous version, in his view, because they would not support restrictions on abortion funding known as the Hyde Amendment.
Conservative groups write letter opposing Trump move to lower drug prices
There’s starting to be some more resistance among Republicans to President Trump’s drug pricing move in October, which broke from Republican orthodoxy.
The letter from 55 groups warns that the administration’s proposal “imports foreign price controls into the U.S.”
It was signed by leaders of prominent conservative groups such as Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the American Conservative Union.
“The U.S. is a world leader in research & development because the system of healthcare rejects price controls and encourages innovation,” the conservatives’ letter states.
On Capitol Hill: Most GOP lawmakers have been pretty quiet on the proposal, but GOP Rep. Larry Bucshon (Ind.) did criticize Trump’s move to The Hill earlier this month.
Read more about the growing opposition here.
CVS, Aetna complete $70 billion merger
CVS completed its acquisition of Aetna on Wednesday, officially creating a health-care powerhouse.
The deal between one of the country’s largest insurers and one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers was a year in the making. The companies said the merger will usher in a new era of reduced costs to patients.
“By delivering the combined capabilities of our two leading organizations, we will transform the consumer health experience and build healthier communities through a new innovative health care model that is local, easier to use, less expensive and puts consumers at the center of their care,” said CVS Health president and CEO Larry J. Merlo.
What we’re reading
What the ObamaCare fight says about Nancy Pelosi (Huffington Post)
Stephen Colbert says he’d put on MAGA hat if Trump had ‘sensible fix’ to ObamaCare (Fox News)
Fewer people are buying ObamaCare plans as Trump pushes other options (Bloomberg)
State by state
Top Florida health official resigns from agency overseeing Medicaid, hospitals (Orlando Sentinel)
Kentucky official downplays concern about new Medicaid rules (Associated Press)
State sees fewer health care sign-ups after outreach gutted (Keene Sentinel)
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