Summary
Congress is out today for the Jewish holiday, with the Senate returning tomorrow and the House returning on Wednesday. Tomorrow, the Senate will begin to tee up a vote on a fiscal year (FY) 2023 continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government operating through mid-December. Senate and House committee leaders reached a deal to attach a five-year reauthorization of the Food and Drug Administration’s user fee programs, along with other relatively uncontroversial policy riders including funding for the Ukraine efforts. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has pushed back against the inclusion of the user fees reauthorization, calling for a clean CR, but he won’t allow a government shut down over the issue. Also, it is unclear if Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) can get enough votes to support his energy permit language. If a 60-vote threshold isn’t reached, the language will be removed. The House is expected to pass the measure before midnight on Friday.
Mental Health
This week, the House is expected to vote on the Mental Health Matters Act (H.R. 7780) – a package of bills to support the delivery of mental health programs for children and students, expand the workforce of school-based mental health service providers, and strengthen the Department of Labor’s authority to enforce mental health parity requirements. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) introduced the bill. The legislation has no Republican cosponsors.
Congressional committees are ramping up their work on mental health. Last Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) released its discussion draft focused on mental health workforce (WHG summary). SFC released discussion drafts on telemental health (WHG summary) and youth mental health (WHG summary) earlier this year. Other mental health efforts being considered include the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the House Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee packages (details here and here, respectively) that would largely reauthorize funding for existing mental health programs and the recently advanced House Ways & Means Committee bills that aim to improve access to mental health services under Medicare and private health insurance (WHG summary).
However, passing comprehensive mental health legislation this Congress is increasingly not looking likely. Many key Republicans are still at odds with Democrats over the Inflation Reduction Act, and point to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as evidence that Congress has already addressed mental health. Senate sources tell us that Senate Republicans don’t have the appetite to do more right now, though Senate Democrats and several Republicans still see this as an urgent need and a bipartisan issue. The SFC discussion drafts may at least serve as a starting point for the next Congress.
Nutrition
On Wednesday, the Biden Administration will host the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. President Biden will unveil the Administration’s “National Strategy [that] will identify steps the government will take and catalyzes the public and private sectors to address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health.” Leading up to the conference, the Department of Agriculture convened listening sessions and collected policy recommendations to inform the national strategy. The five pillars of the White House conference are:
- Improve food access and affordability;
- Integrate nutrition and health;
- Empower all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices;
- Support physical activity for all; and
- Enhance nutrition and food security research.
Abortion
On Thursday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing on ““Examining the Harm to
Patients from Abortion Restrictions and the Threat of a National Abortion Ban.” Since Democrats do not have the votes to safeguard access to abortion services, the hearing is like an effort for the party to motivate constituents to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently introduced a bill to ban abortion at 15 weeks gestation, except in situations involving rape, incest, or risks to the life and physical health of the mother. Given Democratic control, the bill is not expected to move this Congress. We could see Republicans push for this bill and other similar proposals depending on how the election goes. Currently, 44 states prohibit abortion at a certain point in pregnancy, 9 state ban abortion completely, 4 states ban abortion at 6 weeks, and 1 state bans abortion at 15 weeks. The remaining 31 states ban abortion after 15 weeks.
MedPAC
On Thursday and Friday, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) will begin discussions on the utilization and availability of mental health services for Medicare beneficiaries in response to a request from House Ways and Means (W&M) Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) Notably, W&M favorably reported a bill that would require revisions to the methodology for determining Medicare payment rates under the inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPF) prospective payment system (PPS) for fiscal year 2025, among other improvements (WHG summary). Commissioners’ analysis could culminate into recommendations that inform W&M’s work.
MedPAC will also discuss the following topics:
- Options to better support safety-net clinicians;
- Prototype prospective payment system (PPS) for all post-acute care (PAC) providers (report due June 30, 2023);
- Nursing facility staffing;
- COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities (report due June 30, 2023); and
- Analysis of Part D data on drug rebates and discounts.