Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
White House Launches Push For Access, Training On Overdose Reversal Meds
The Biden administration launched an initiative Wednesday that it describes as a nationwide call to increase training on and access to life-saving opioid overdose reversal medications, dubbed the Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose. (Christensen, 3/13)
Pharmaceutical interests lost a closely watched battle over the federal drug discount program on Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that Arkansas can block manufacturers from limiting the availability of discounted drugs at certain pharmacies. (Bettelheim, 3/13)
On the Change Healthcare cyberattack —
Senior federal officials met with a wide array of healthcare company and trade group executives Tuesday as they urged UnitedHealth Group and other insurance companies to do more to aid providers harmed by the ongoing Change Healthcare outage. UnitedHealth Group — which operates Change Healthcare through its Optum subsidiary and sells insurance through its UnitedHealthcare subsidiary — and the rest of the industry can do more to mitigate cash flow problems arising from a cyberattack that has disrupted healthcare operations for weeks, the White House, the Health and Human Services Department and other authorities said during the meeting, according to an HHS news release. (Berryman, 3/12)
A central question that has emerged since a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary is how the strike against a single company has wrought such chaos across an entire industry. (Reed, 3/13)
