Overnight Health Care: House to vote next week on drug prices bill | Conway says Trump trying to find ‘balance’ on youth vaping | US spent $1 trillion on hospitals in 2018

by Nathaniel Weixel, Jessie Hellmann, and Peter Sullivan - 12/05/19 6:11 PM ET

Welcome to Thursday’s Overnight Health Care.

House Democrats will vote next week on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s signature drug pricing proposal, youth tobacco use is growing, Planned Parenthood is launching ads targeting GOP senators and the U.S. spends more money on hospitals than any other health sector.

We’ll start with drug pricing:

House to vote next week on sweeping bill to lower drug prices

After months of anticipation, next week is the big week for the House’s drug pricing bill.

The bill, a top priority for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats, would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices for up to 250 drugs per year, with the lower prices applied to people with private insurance as well as Medicare.

Democrats have tried to show that they are moving forward with kitchen-table issues like lowering drug prices at the same time they are also taking steps forward on impeaching President Trump.

“We are going to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices, and make those prices available to Americans with private insurance as well as Medicare beneficiaries,” Pelosi said in a statement with other top Democrats. “American seniors and families shouldn’t have to pay more for their medicines than what Big Pharma charges in other countries for the same drugs.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and three key committee chairmen, Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), joined Pelosi on the statement.

Read more here.

But…there are still some problems to work out:

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is warning that some progressives could vote no on Pelosi’s drug pricing bill unless changes are made.

“We have told leadership that there could be people who vote against the bill so they should be ready for that if things aren’t included,” Pocan told reporters after a meeting of the Progressive Caucus, adding that the group had not done a formal vote count.

Pocan added “we haven’t gotten that far” when asked if the group would issue a formal statement threatening to vote no, adding he still hoped leadership would agree to changes before a vote.

Note: The measure is still widely expected to pass, but the progressive concerns do pose an obstacle that Democratic leadership will need to navigate.

Read more here.

Conway: Trump trying to find ‘balance’ on youth vaping issue

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Trump, said Thursday that Trump is trying to strike a balance on regulating e-cigarette flavors that preserves the products for adults but keeps them from children.

“He’s looking for a way to respect and recognize and accommodate the fact that e-cigarettes have a public health benefit for those legal adult users who are trying to come down from combustibles [cigarettes],” Conway told reporters.

Trump initially said in September his administration would clear the market of e-cigarette flavors like mint and fruit that studies show are appealing to kids and fueling a youth vaping epidemic.

The president and his top deputies have indicated he wants to find a compromise that makes everyone happy … but that’s unlikely.

Anti-tobacco advocates want a full ban on e-cigarette flavors, including menthol. Vaping advocates and the industry want the administration to leave favors alone and instead raise the purchasing age from 18 to 21.

Conway also said the final guidance will come from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not the White House.

Between the lines: Yes, the guidance will come from the FDA. But that doesn’t mean Trump and officials in the White House aren’t weighing in heavily on what that guidance says.

Read more here.

U.S. spent $1 trillion on hospitals in 2018, report finds

The U.S. spent $1.2 trillion on hospitals last year, according to a new government analysis of health spending.

The study from nonpartisan actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found that total health spending hit $3.6 trillion in 2018, and 33 percent was spent on hospitals.

The report comes as Congress, the Trump administration and 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are debating ways to slow health spending and lower how much money Americans have to pay for care.

The Trump administration has targeted hospitals recently with new rules intended to increase transparency and drive down costs by boosting competition. The administration wants hospitals to disclose the discounted prices they give insurers for a wide range of services.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma said the growth in hospital pricing is clear evidence the administration’s transparency rules are needed.

“With hospital prices increasing 2.4% in 2018– and with price increases driving the growth we’re seeing in hospital spending – why wouldn’t we want to make hospital prices transparent?” Verma tweeted Thursday.

Read more here.

CDC: Tobacco use among kids jumped to 6.2 million this year

More than 6 million teenagers in a new government survey said they have used tobacco products in recent days. Cigarette use fell to a record low in 2019, but other tobacco products like e-cigarettes are taking their place, according to federal data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The survey found that about 1 in 3 high school students (4.7 million) and about 1 in 8 middle school students (1.5 million) are tobacco users, compared with a total of 3.6 million in 2018.

For the sixth year in a row, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among high school and middle school students.

Last year’s numbers prompted then-Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to crack down on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes in stores and online.