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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker and Ben Leonard | | | | | 
Carnival said it will take innovation and behavioral change to reach Biden's cancer moonshot goal. | Rod Laskey for POLITICO | | | 4 million — the lives saved if President Biden’s cancer moonshot succeeds in reducing the death rate from the disease by 50 percent over the next 25 years | | Reaching President Joe Biden’s cancer moonshot goal will take both innovation and changes in American lifestyles. Biden’s moonshot coordinator, Danielle Carnival, spelled out what needs to happen at POLITICO’s Health Care Summit this week: — New therapies driven in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which received an appropriation of $2.5 billion this fiscal year — Reauthorization of the National Cancer Act, the 1971 law that created the National Cancer Institute, to use as a vehicle to upgrade and diversify clinical trials — Continued progress in reducing smoking rates — Greater success in preventing and treating diabetes and obesity Reality check: “Let’s be really clear, this is still about innovation,” Carnival said. “We do not have the tools today that will get us to that goal of ending cancer as we know it.” On the current trajectory, mortality trends suggest an age-adjusted decrease of 44 percent by 2047, but Carnival told the audience the administration believes it can hit the 50 percent goal or exceed it. Over the past three decades, the cancer death rate has fallen 33 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
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Cub Neck Creek, Md. | Shawn Zeller | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. The House Education and the Workforce Committee is set to mark up legislation Tuesday that would permanently allow employers to offer telehealth services as a tax-free benefit separate from other health plans, according to a congressional aide. What do you expect to see next week? Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with Carmen about the skepticism that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra expressed about future funding for Covid vaccines at this week’s POLITICO Health Care Summit.
| | | | | | |  Sutter Health was an antitrust target of Xavier Becerra when he was California's attorney general | AP | Stricter antitrust enforcement in the health care sector could save lives. So argued a Yale health economist during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on hospital consolidation yesterday. When hospitals merge and gain bargaining leverage, they can raise their prices, Zack Cooper, an associate professor of public health and economics at Yale University, told lawmakers. That in turn can push up insurance premiums, making it more expensive for employers offering health insurance to retain workers. "For firms that offer employer-sponsored health insurance, when the price of insurance goes up, they broadly have three choices. They can lower the wages of workers. They can slow down hiring or they can let workers go. We see evidence of all three happening," Cooper said. Not just a paycheck: The health consequences of losing a job are "eye opening," Cooper added. "We're seeing people get let go in a period where we have an opioid epidemic, and so losing your job can be financially devastating to your health." In his written testimony, he pointed to studies which found that individuals who lost their jobs had an increased risk of dying within a year, often from suicide, an accident or a drug overdose. "That's really the big concern that I have, which is health spending goes up. It forces some folks to lose their job and ultimately the consequences are severe," Cooper said.
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Digital therapeutics include apps that aim to help patients with conditions like substance use disorder. | George Frey/Getty Images | The makers of novel medical treatments that come in the form of apps or video games have struggled to gain traction because the government and insurers don’t have a clear definition of what they are. Earlier today, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, a trade group for the industry, released one. What’s it say? That digital therapeutics are "health software intended to treat or alleviate a disease, disorder, condition or injury by generating and delivering a medical intervention that has a demonstrable positive therapeutic impact on a patient's health." The International Organization for Standardization published the definiiton and the DTA adopted it. What’s next? The alliance’s members hope the agreement on terms will lead to industrywide standards that will make the sector more scalable. The group expressed confidence since, in its view, there is a wider variety of "acceptable evidence" for digital therapeutics than for conventional ones, and that real-world evidence from patients who’ve used the products is "highly valuable." “As we move together as an industry, we can really start to make some change and create some infrastructure," said Megan Coder, the alliance’s chief policy officer at the industry group’s conference in Washington, D.C. “There have been a number of payers and policymakers who have been really excited to move forward.” The group also released an educational toolkit for policymakers crafted alongside consulting firm Health Advances. Even so: It’s not the first effort to put forward some kind of standards for the technology. In 2021, the Consumer Technology Association, industry groups and the Digital Therapeutics Alliance engaged to propose standards aimed at eliminating confusion and boosting adoption by giving more structure to evidence generation. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
