From the Delta variant front —
- The Centers for Disease Control reported today on a study finding that “Among hospitalized U.S. patients aged 12–18 years, vaccine effectiveness of 2 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 hospitalization during June–September 2021, was 93% (95% confidence interval = 83%–97%).”
- The Wall Street Journal tells us that General Electric Co., Union Pacific Corp. and other large U.S. employers are imposing Covid-19 vaccine mandates for their workers to comply with a Dec. 8 deadline set by the Biden administration for companies that are federal contractors. The FEHBlog expects that these companies understandably are taking this approach without prodding from the government contracting officers in order to avoid the OSHA vaccination screening program.
- David Leonhardt in this morning’s New York Times, wrote about the death of General Colin Powell, who was a great American leader. He points out that
Colin Powell’s death at 84 underscores the continuing risk that Covid-19 presents to older people — even if they are fully vaccinated, as Powell was. For vaccinated Americans in their 70s and 80s, Covid remains more dangerous on average than many other everyday risks, including falls, choking, gunshot wounds or vehicle accidents. * * *
If cases return to their low levels of the spring and early summer, deaths among older adults will probably plummet as well.
He also encourage older folks to get the COVID booster, which is happening, and the country to expand rapid COVID tests. He concludes
For most Americans, vaccination makes the risk of a serious form of Covid extremely rare. And for children, Covid tends to be mild even without vaccination. But until caseloads decline more, the situation remains frightening for many older people.
From Capitol Hill, the Federal New Network discusses the Senate Budget Committee’s release of the majority’s appropriations bills yesterday.
For federal employees, the draft bills from Senate Democrats are noticeably silent on a pay raise for civilian workers next year.
In their silence, Senate appropriators have essentially deferred to the plan President Joe Biden presented to Congressearlier this year. That plan called for a 2.2% across-the-board pay increase for federal employees, with an additional 0.5% in locality adjustments to total, on average, a 2.7% raise for 2022.
Neither the House nor Senate appears interested in legislating their own federal pay raise for civilian employees next year, making Biden’s planned 2.7% increase all the more likely.
From the waste front, UPI reports that
Medicare spent nearly $600 million over a three-year period to pay for cancer care involving four drugs later found to provide no clinical benefit for some forms of the disease for which the Food and Drug Administration approved them, an analysis published Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine found.
More than $170 million of this spending was for products voluntarily withdrawn by their manufacturers after clinical trials showed that they did not improve overall survival in people with various types of cancer, including breast and lung as well as liver and urinary tract cancers, the data showed.
From the over the counter front, Healthcare Dive reports that
- “FDA proposed a rule creating a new category of over-the-counter hearing aids, allowing the products to be sold directly to consumers in stores and online without a medical exam or being fitted by an audiologist.
- “The agency’s proposal is meant to increase competition in the lucrative hearing aid market and improve access to the high-cost technology for millions of Americans through a safe, effective and more affordable OTC alternative. While the rule, if finalized, would more clearly define prescription hearing aids, FDA said it would not change the classification of existing device types.
- “A Cowen analyst said in a Tuesday note the FDA’s proposed rule would effectively allow consumer electronics manufacturers to get into the hearing aid space that has been dominated by companies such as ReSound, Sonova and William Demant. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Apple is studying ways to make its AirPods into a health device, including for enhancing hearing.”
Competition is good.
It’s worth noting that in contrast to FEHB and employer sponsored coverage generally, Medicare Part B rarely requires prior authorization for any prescribed course of treatment.
From the tidbits department, Fierce Healthcare is offering a series of articles from the ongoing HLTH 2.0 conference