From Washington, DC

• Following up on the House Appropriations subcommittee’s approval of the Financial Services and General Government bill yesterday, Fedweek notes,
  • “By taking no position on a raise, the measure effectively endorses President Biden’s proposal for a 2 percent increase in January. That would follow the practice of most recent years of allowing the recommendation to take effect by default, and would result in the smallest raise since the 1 percent paid in January 2021. The measure however does continue longstanding language tying raises for wage grade employees to those of GS employees in an area, even though the two pay systems operate under separate locality-based rules.”

• The Washington Post reports “Biden wants hospitals to report data on gunshot wounds.”
  • “The Biden administration is enlisting America’s doctors to help combat gun violence.
  • “About 160 health-care executives and officials have been invited to the White House today and Friday to promote public health solutions to the epidemic. A top priority, I’m told: The White House wants hospital emergency departments to collect more data about gunshot injuries their physicians treat, as well as routinely counsel patients about the safe use of firearms.”

• Healthcare Dive informs us,
  • “A federal judge ruled Wednesday Novant Health can move forward with its plans to purchase two North Carolina hospitals from Community Health Systems, despite a request from the Federal Trade Commission to stall the deal.”A federal judge ruled Wednesday Novant Health can move forward with its plans to purchase two North Carolina hospitals from Community Health Systems, despite a request from the Federal Trade Commission to stall the deal.
  • “The antitrust agency sued to block the deal in January, claiming it would decrease competition and drive up consumer prices in the greater Lake Norman, North Carolina, area by allotting Novant more than 65% control of the region’s inpatient market.
  • “U.S. district judge Kenneth Bell denied the FTC’s request for an injunction, saying the hospitals are likely to shutter absent a deal.”

• On a related note, the Wall Street Journal continues its series on hospital consolidation.

From the public health and medical research front,

• The Washington Post reports
  • “A 59-year-old male resident of Mexico died after being infected with a bird flu subtype never before confirmed to have spread to humans, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.”
  • “The man, who suffered from other underlying health conditions, had no known exposure to poultry or other animals before being formally diagnosed by a laboratory with the H5N2 subtype of avian flu. The case marks the first time a human has been confirmed to be infected with this subtype, and the first time an avian H5 virus was confirmed in a person in Mexico.
  • “Due to the constantly evolving nature of influenza viruses, WHO continues to stress the importance of global surveillance,” WHO said in a statement. “This case does not change the current WHO recommendations on public health measures and surveillance of influenza,” it added, rating current risks to the general population as “low.”
• and
  • “‘Unusual’ cancers emerged after the pandemic. Doctors ask if covid is to blame.”‘Unusual’ cancers emerged after the pandemic. Doctors ask if covid is to blame.
  • “It’s not a new idea that viruses can cause or accelerate cancer. But it will probably be years before answers emerge about covid and cancer.”

• Mercer Consulting offers bird flu considerations for employers.

• The NIH Director in her blog relates,
  • “The ability to communicate using only your thoughts might sound like the stuff of science fiction. But for people who don’t have the ability to speak or move due to injury or disease, there’s great hope that this may one day be possible using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can “read” relevant brain signals and translate them into written or spoken words. A research team has made a preliminary advance in this direction by showing for the first time that a computerized brain implant can decode internal speech with minimal training.
  • “In the new NIH-supported study, researchers implanted such a device in a brain area known to be important for representing spoken words called the supramarginal gyrus in two people with tetraplegia, a condition marked by full body paralysis from the neck down due to cervical spinal cord injury. The researchers found that the device could decode several words the participants “spoke” only in their minds. While we are far from using such a device to decode whole sentences or even phrases, and the exact mechanisms of internal speech are still under study, the findings, reported in Nature Human Behavior , are notable because it had been unclear whether the brain signals involved in thinking words could be reproducibly translated. * * *
  • “While there is much more to learn about how to decode internal speech more reliably across individuals, the findings offer proof-of-concept for a high-performance internal speech BCI. The new research adds to a growing portfolio of rapidly advancing technologies supported by the BRAIN Initiative that could one day routinely restore the ability to communicate for those who can no longer speak or even move, including people with brain injuries, paralysis, or diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will need to weigh whether Eli Lilly’s experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug donanemab is widely effective or should be restricted only to people who have deposits in their brains of a toxic protein called tau, according to documents released Thursday ahead of a key regulatory meeting next week.
  • “The FDA will also ask its advisers to provide guidance on whether and when it’s safe for people to stop taking donanemab based on reductions in another toxic protein called amyloid, as well as on the risks of mild brain swelling that can result from donanemab and other drugs of its type.”The FDA will also ask its advisers to provide guidance on whether and when it’s safe for people to stop taking donanemab based on reductions in another toxic protein called amyloid, as well as on the risks of mild brain swelling that can result from donanemab and other drugs of its type.
  • “If approved, donanemab would be the third amyloid-targeted drug to launch. Biogen has withdrawn the first, called Aduhelm, after much controversy and few sales. Eisai, along with Biogen, more recently won approval of a second, called Leqembi, which brought in sales of $19 million in the first quarter.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Health Affairs offers advice to employers about how to help employees reduce their healthcare costs.
  • “Employers, and especially small employers, may have limited ability to affect the direct causes of increasing spending—notably high prices. However, they do have some options that could lower the burden of out-of-pocket costs for their employees. Employers could partner with insurers to use more innovative cost-sharing structures in the health insurance benefits offered to their employees. In addition, they could increase the use of benefit designs that distribute costs more equitably, which may improve affordability for low- to middle-income workers.”

• HR Dive tells us,
  • “In an era when retirement is frequently at the forefront of ageism, diversity and benefits conversations, older adults now make up a larger share of American workforce members over the age of 55. The Employee Benefit Research Institute found that adults aged 65 and older made up 29.5% of the workforce in 2023, compared to an estimated 23% in 2000.
  • “Additionally, EBRI noted that the share of Hispanic workers aged 55 and older more than doubled, with the share of older White workers dropping from about 87% to 81%.
  • “The changing demographic characteristics of the older workforce are “important considerations for employers to understand, as older workers and a more diverse work force calls for additional or new answers to the optimal design of employee benefit plans,” Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits at EBRI, said in a release.”

• EBRI also released a Fast Facts publication informing us that “HSAs Reduce Use of Outpatient Services and Prescription Drugs, Increase Use of Inpatient Services; Overall Spending Unaffected.”