What the Biopharmaceutical Industry Needs to Know in the Wake of the Supreme Court Decision Upholding the Affordable Care Act

No Worries, We Recorded it Will the PhRMA Deal Stand and What Happens Next? What the Biopharmaceutical Industry Needs to Know in the Wake of the Supreme Court Decision Upholding the Affordable Care Act July 26 This 90-minute archived webinar lets you hear experts cut through the hype to consider the real effects of the decision on the drug, device and biopharmaceutical industries. Among other things, panelists discussed how states may limit the expansion of Medicaid and how that may affect the PhRMA deal with Congress, including the $80 Billion contribution in exchange for additional patients with Part D coverage. At the conclusion of this webinar, you will be able to: • Explain the effects of the Affordable Care Act decision on the medicine companies, especially its affect on Medicare Part D covered recipients and the biopharmaceutical industries • Discuss how the decision may impact the development of biosimilars • Discuss the options and possible political outcomes as health care reform evolves, including likely legislation next year important to the biopharmaceutical and related industries Moderator: • John F. Kamp, JD, PhD, Executive Director Coalition for Healthcare Communication Presenters: • Peter J. Pitts, President, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest • Arnold I. Friede, Former FDA Associate Chief Counsel, Principal, Arnold I. Friede & Associates • Richard Manning, PhD, Partner, Bates White Economic Consulting Please Note: Continuing education credits are not available for archived webinars. Overview | Register The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s National Priorities and Research Agenda Biosimilar Guidances: Explanation and Discussion: Part 1 and Part 2 Meeting Global Patient Demand for Access to Medicines Prior to Approval and Launch Two-part Series: Impact of the New European Pharmacovigilance Legislation on International Companies View the Full List of Archived Webinars. Questions on Archived Webinars? Contact: Carolyn Callahan

Affortable Care Act - Health Reform Benefits from WhiteHouse.gov

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/28/supreme-court-upholds-president-obamas-health-care-reform?utm_source=email168&utm_medium=graphic&utm_campaign=healthcare#health-care-checklist

If The Health Care Overhaul Goes Down, Could Medicare Follow?, from Julie Rovner of NPR

A growing number of health experts are warning of potential collateral damage if the Supreme Court strikes down the entire 2010 Affordable Care Act: potential chaos in the Medicare program.

"The Affordable Care Act has become part and parcel of the Medicare system, encouraging providers to deliver better, more integrated, better coordinated care, at lower cost," says Judy Feder, a public policy professor at Georgetown University and former Clinton administration health official. "To all of a sudden eliminate that would be highly disruptive."

Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, puts it a bit more bluntly: "We could find ourselves at kind of a grand stopping point for the entire health care system."

And it's not just Democrats warning of potential problems. Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush, says she doesn't think it's likely that the court will strike down the entire health law. But if it does, she says, "it seems like it takes everything with it, including those aspects that are only very peripherally related to the expansion of coverage."
So why are experts so worried?

One reason is that the law changed the payment rates for just about every type of health care professional who treats Medicare patients. Every time Medicare sets a payment rate, it needs to cite a legal authority. And for the past two years, says Rosenbaum, that legal authority has been the Affordable Care Act.

So if the law is found unconstitutional, she says, every one of those changes "doesn't exist anymore because the law doesn't exist."

And the result? "You have agencies sitting on two years of policies that are up in smoke," she says. "Hospitals might not get paid. Nursing homes might not get paid. Doctors might not get paid. Changes in coverage that have begun to take effect for the elderly, closing the doughnut hole might not happen. We don't know."

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Before the Affordable Care Act young adults had the highest uninsured rate of any age group for health care in the country, from CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- When you're young, health insurance is hardly a priority. But for Sarah Adkins, 25, it was a lifesaver.

Because of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that enables young adults to remain on their parents' insurance plans until age 26, Adkins received health coverage just as her kidney was shutting down from an untreated kidney stone.

She hadn't been able to find a full-time job with benefits after graduating from college nearly two years earlier. Without health insurance, the freelance graphic designer had avoided treatment for her chronic kidney stones -- even painfully trying to pass a stone herself in a moment of desperation.
After the Affordable Care Act took effect in September 2010, Adkins was able to go on her father's plan and have emergency kidney surgery. "The doctor told me my kidney was shutting down and if I continued to avoid treatment, I could have died. I was only 24," she said.

What health care reform is (and isn't) doing now

 

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http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/16/pf/health-care-young-adults/?source=cnn_bin

Affordable Care Act: What happens to the med-tech tax if Obamacare goes down? - from MassDevice

 

With a key provision of the Affordable Care Act possibly on the chopping block, MassDevice looks at how the medical device and biotechnology industries will fare if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down any of Obamacare's provisions.

Even if the U.S. Supreme Court finds a key provision of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Actto be unconstitutional, it's likely the medical device tax will live to fight another day.

Kevin Outterson, director of Boston University's Health Law Program and a blogger on health policy at The Incidental Economist, told MassDevice.com that unless the most conservative position prevails, there will be a separate fight to determine how the Supremes' ruling will impact the sweeping reforms contained in the President Barack Obama's landmark legislation.

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Health Care Reform, good for some, bad for others

In my quest to better understand the many facets of health care reform, here are some links including Pharmas benefit and what the health care policy folk at Rutgers are saying on the matter. Please see the links for the complete articles. -WKovitz

 Obamacare reconsidered: a pretty good deal for the drug industry

As the Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's “Individual Mandate” – and maybe the law itself – a pretty sweet deal for the drug industry hangs in the balance.

“The potential complete demise of Obamacare as written is, as the saying goes, throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” said Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a caustic critic of some parts of the law. “For pharma, the ACA is a gift, bringing in anywhere between 30-40 million people who could not previously afford pharmaceuticals.”

From Rutger's Daily Targum

NJ Public Health panel looks into Obamacare

Panelists at “The Future of Health Care Reform — The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the 2012 Presidential Election,” sponsored by the University’s chapter of the New Jersey Public Health Association, looked at the act critically in terms of how it would affect U.S. citizens. 

RUTGERS TODAY

Supreme Court hearing Health Care Law and individual mandate arguments 
BY ANDREA ALEXANDER

The Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments this week in a challenge to the most significant overhaul of the nation’s health care system in nearly 50 years. The suit brought by 26 states, several individuals, and a national business group challenges the Affordable Health Care Act, which President Obama signed into law two years ago. The law requires nearly all Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty by 2015. The court will dedicate six hours to hear arguments over three days, the most time given to any case since 1966. Joel C. Cantor, director of Rutgers’ Center for State Health Policy and a professor of public policy, explains the issues the court will consider, components of the law, and what’s at stake if it’s struck down.