Insights: Policy

Fed Personnel/Litigation

Last week, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) deferred a ruling on President Trump’s motion for stay on lower court rulings barring his firing of Federal Reserve Board Governor Cook. Rather than ruling on the President’s motion for a stay, SCOTUS has scheduled oral arguments on the matter for January. No official date has been set, but currently SCOTUS...

Government Shutdown

On Friday, the Senate took an additional vote on a House-passed “continuing resolution (CR)” that would provide appropriations through November and allow the government to re-open, but no Democrats voted for it beyond the three that had done so earlier last week. Seven Democratic votes will be required in addition to all Republicans to reach the...

Medtech/Tariffs

The Commerce Department launched a Sec. 232 tariff investigation into personal protective equipment (PPE), medical consumables and medical equipment, including devices. The Commerce Department will collect comments on the probe until 10/17 and are seeking input on the demand for such items now and in the future, the extent to which domestic...

Medicare Advantage

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has ruled in favor of Humana in its lawsuit challenging CMS's MA Risk Adjustment Data Validation (RADV) rule (which checks the accuracy of the diagnosis codes submitted by MA plans to recoup overpayments).

Drug Pricing (Most Favored Nation, Tariffs)

During a White House event this week, Pfizer announced it would provide Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing (matching the lowest prices in other developed countries) for its drugs in the Medicaid program (scope of products unspecified), apply MFN pricing on a go-forward basis on all “new innovative medicines” Pfizer brings to market (payer focus...

Tech / Media / Telecom

Export Controls/China/Semiconductors

The Commerce Department issued a rule that would add to its entity list (blacklist) any subsidiaries that are at least 50% owned by a company already on the entity list. Firms on the entity list are not allowed to contract with U.S. firms unless the Commerce Department grants the U.S. firm a license to do so. The entity list expansion is not...