A trio of court actions provide news for this week鈥檚 鈥淲hat the Health?鈥欌�� panel.
A federal appeals court this week handed hospitals a setback in their effort to stop the Trump administration from cutting funding for a program that provides deep discounts on drugs. Physicians sued health insurer Anthem for its policy of retroactively declaring some emergency department claims not to be an emergency. And the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the city of Philadelphia鈥檚 controversial tax on sweetened beverages.
Also this week, an interview with Jeff Goldsmith, health care futurist and consultant.
This week鈥檚 panelists for KHN鈥檚 鈥淲hat the Health?鈥� are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Erin Mershon of Stat News.
Among the takeaways:
- The fight over the 鈥�340B鈥� hospital drug discount program largely pits pharmaceutical makers, who are required by law to give discounts to health facilities that serve low-income patients, against the hospitals and clinics that get the discounts. The court ruled that the hospitals鈥� challenge to the proposed cuts was premature, and hospitals have vowed to refile their lawsuit. But the fight has spawned a huge advertising effort aimed at policymakers in Washington, including bus stop posters from the program鈥檚 supporters featuring a unicorn.
- Anthem has been heavily criticized for its policy of not paying emergency room bills if the patients should have known that they didn鈥檛 need emergency care. But it appears that the insurer has quietly pulled back from implementing the policy much of the time. That still didn鈥檛 stop emergency room doctors from suing Anthem this week in Georgia, however.
- Could the Trump administration鈥檚 recent action to pull down some health care material from agency websites suggest that officials plan to make changes in some sexual discrimination regulations?
- FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stunned a Washington audience this week when he said officials are looking into whether beverages manufactured from plants, such as almonds and soy, can be labeled milk under FDA guidelines that say milk must come from animals that lactate. But perhaps that cow is already out of the barn.
Plus, for 鈥渆xtra credit,鈥� the panelists recommend their favorite health stories of the week they think you should read, too:
Julie Rovner:聽The Atlantic鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Olga Khazan
Joanne Kenen:聽Politico鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Adam Cancryn
Erin Mershon:聽NPR and the Center for Public Integrity鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Liz Essley Whyte, Joe Yerardi and Alison Kodjak
Margot Sanger-Katz:聽NPR and ProPublica鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� by Marshall Allen
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