Opioid Legislation; Tariffs Update; Budget Clawback Fails

The House of Representatives declared both the weeks of June 11th and June 18th as “Opioid Week” and took the opportunity to debate over 30 unique pieces of legislation to help address the current opioid crisis in the United States.  Topics covered by this legislation ranged from patient education, additional funds for substance use disorder treatment facilities, to more focus on pain management alternatives to opioids. A more controversial bill, the Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act—which allows for the disclosure of substance use disorder patient records without a patient’s written consent to physicians or public health authorities, in accordance to HIPAA laws.

On June 15, 2018, The United States Trade Representative removed $3 billion in medical devices from the list of Chinese technology imports subject to a 25% tariff. This action followed a letter from AAOS raising concerns with the negative consequences for patients and provider access to critical new medical technology. Read the letter here.

Last August, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) initiated a Section 301 investigation against China. Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 authorizes the President to take action against a foreign government that implements policies that violate international trade agreements or is deemed to be exercising unjustified, unreasonable or discriminatory restrictions on U.S. commerce.

The Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC) Health IT Advisory Committee (HITAC) held its monthly meeting by phone Wednesday, June 20. The ONC Director, Donald Rucker, gave initial introductory remarks and made several announcements, including: ONC will hold its annual Interoperability Forum August 6-8, HHS Secretary Alex Azar has approved the HITAC Policy Framework, and the Committee will begin work to establish a new task group to produce the annual HITAC Progress Report required under the 21st Century Cures Act.

A single payer health care model has effectively become a front-and-center issue in California’s 2018 elections. It has been discussed in virtually every democratic forum with the candidates running for governor, emerged as a point of contention in some legislative races, and will be a rallying cry at the upcoming California Democratic Party convention.

A single-payer proposal in California came close to passing the state legislature in 2017. The legislation, which had a $400 billion-dollar price tag, had enough votes to pass the legislature but Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) ended the effort. Rendon “shelved” the measure, calling it “woefully incomplete.”

The Senate last week failed to pass a $15 billion budget claw-back supported by President Trump before a procedural deadline. The package of budget rescissions contained $7 billion in spending that had been designated for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and was widely seen as an effort to appease conservatives unhappy with the increased federal spending contained in earlier bipartisan budget deals.

The rescissions package would not have directly affected the 10-year CHIP authorization signed into law earlier in 2018. Instead, the bill targets funds that were appropriated but not spent in prior years. The bill also includes contingency funds that were not likely be accessed. However, CHIP proponents raised concerns that these funds could be used to plug gaps in other healthcare programs in the future and should be reserved for that purpose.

Promoting Interoperability (PI) Reporting Deadline

June 29, 2018 is the last day to submit measures for consideration for the MIPS Promoting Interoperability (PI) performance category.

The PI category replaces the Medicare EHR Incentive Program (Meaningful Use). The measures within the category are based on the measures from Meaningful Use. Eligible clinicians must report on a set of four or five required measures, referred to as base measures. Failure to report any one of the base measures will result in a score of zero for the entire PI performance category.

Click here, to view the interactive version of the map below, which features each state’s PAC support for 2017.