Insurance Coverage and Medical Care

In Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association the Supreme Court will decide whether states’ attempts to regulate pharmacy benefit managers’ (PBMs) drug-reimbursement rates are preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

PBMs are an intermediary between health plans and pharmacies. Among other things, they set reimbursement rates to pharmacies dispensing generic drugs. Contracts between PBMs and pharmacies create pharmacy networks. According to the Eighth Circuit, “[b]ased upon these contracts and in order to participate in a preferred network, some pharmacies choose to accept lower reimbursements for dispensed prescriptions.” So, in some instance pharmacies lose money.

Arkansas passed a law requiring that pharmacies “be reimbursed for generic drugs at a price equal to or higher than the pharmacies’ cost for the drug based on the invoice from the wholesaler.”

In a long-awaited decision in Texas v. Azar the Fifth Circuit held that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate is unconstitutional. This decision has no practical effect because no one is currently required to pay the shared-responsibility payment. A year ago, a federal district court held the individual mandate is inseverable from the ACA rendering the entire law unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit sent the case back to the lower court...

Uninsured rates have dropped sharply since 2010, and poverty rates are down as well. During this decade, income has been distributed less equally among households across the Midwest; still, income inequality is less pronounced in most states in this region compared to the rest of the nation.

In addition to many decades of leadership in federal advocacy and international policy change, CSG’s newest associate, the American Childhood Cancer Organization (ACCO), is taking a leadership role in strategic state advocacy through an Amazon supported initiative called Why Not Kids. This movement is based on successful efforts in Kentucky that focus on working with state governments—educating them and informing them of their unique role and responsibility—to close the gap between budget allocations for adult and childhood cancer...

In Moda Health Plan v. United States the Supreme Court will decide whether Congress may enact appropriations riders restricting the sources of funding available to pay health insurers for losses incurred that were supposed to be paid per federal law.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) risk corridor program provided that if a health insurance plan participating in the exchange lost money between 2014-2016 it would receive a payment from the federal government based on a formula defined in the statute. If it made money the plan had to pay the federal government based on a formula. The purpose of the program was to induce health insurance companies to offer plans on the exchange despite the fact they didn’t have reliable data to price the plans.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified a particular funding source the federal government could use to make payments. Congress passed appropriations riders for all three years disallowing that funding source to be used to make risk corridor payments.

As some state legislatures pass laws contradicting Roe v. Wade in the hope the Supreme Court will overturn the 1973 decision, all eyes are on anything the Supreme Court has to say about abortion.  

In a per curiam (unauthored) opinion in a case decided without oral argument, Box v. Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court held that Indiana’s law disallowing fetal remains to be incinerated along with surgical byproducts is constitutional. The Seventh Circuit had invalidated this provision.

Merck v. Albrecht is a simple issue contained in a long story.

In 2009 in Wyeth v. Levine the Supreme Court held that federal law preempts state law failure to warn claims that a drug manufacturer failed to change a drug label if there is “clear evidence” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would not have approved the label change. In Merck v. Albrecht a unanimous Supreme Court held that a judge rather than a jury determines if the FDA would have approved the change.

The federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) provides no federal remedy for unsafe and ineffective drugs but state law may in the form of a failure to warn claim. The FDA allows manufacturers to change warnings on drug labels when newer drug safety information becomes available. The Supreme Court has held if the FDA would not have approved a drug label change, which a state failure to warn law would have required, the FDCA preempts the state law claim.