The House and the Senate will be holding Committee business and floor votes this week. Yesterday when writing up Cybersecurity Saturday, the FEHBlog could not find any fresh news on the National Defense Authorization Act (“”NDAA”) vote. The NDAA often includes federal procurement law changes and this year may include cyberbreach and cyber-ransom payment notice requirements.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that
Congress is expected to focus this week on the defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which was held up in the Senate last week over provisions regarding Russia and China. Instead of the Senate passing its own bill, a compromise bill—negotiated by leadership in the House and Senate—is expected to come to the House for a vote as early as this week.
The Journal further reports that Congressional leadership is working on the debt ceiling issue which may come to a head mid-month and hoping to bring the Build Back Better multi-trillion dollar budget reconciliation bill to a vote before Christmas.
The House of Representatives’ Postal Reform bill (H.R. 3076) would create a new Postal Service Service Health Benefits Program within the FEHB Program. The PSHBP would be tightly integrated with Medicare with respect to annuitant coverage. For that reason, the bill initially was referred to the House Oversight and Reform, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means Committees.
A friend of the FEHBlog called to his attention the fact that last Friday December 3, the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committee were granted an extension for further consideration of the bill ending not later than Jan. 21, 2022. Of course, the Oversight and Reform Committee approved a substitute bill for House floor voting on May 13.
The ongoing Federal Employee Benefits Open Season ends on a week from tomorrow December 13, a few day following the end of Medicare Open Enrollment period which ends this week on December 7.
From the Delta variant front —
- Today’s Washington Post has an interesting article on early analyses of the Omicron variant. The Post notes that
The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the coronavirus.FAQ: What to know about the omicron variant of the coronavirus
Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold. They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by SARS-CoV-2, also known as the novel coronavirus, and the HCoV-229E coronavirus, which can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code with HCoV-229E has not been detected in other novel coronavirus variants, the scientists said.
The study is in preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.
- National Public Radio offers conservative yet sensible guidance filled with expert opinions on how to navigate the holiday season without contracting COVID. For example,
The good news is, you don’t have to hibernate like it’s 2020. Experts note we’re in a much different place than we were last winter, with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters now widely available. There’s good hope that the current vaccines offer protectionagainst severe disease with omicron.
That said, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that when you don’t know what you’re dealing with, “we should invoke the precautionary principle,” says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University.
In other words, don’t panic, but do be thoughtful about what risks you want to take.
In the FEHBlog’s opinion, that’s sound approach to living one’s life.