Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, center, speaks during a news conference in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 28, 2021. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Providers can breathe a sigh of relief: Congress isn't planning on repurposing unspent money from the pandemic provider relief fund, at least not yet.
Driving the news: The White House finally reached an infrastructure deal with a bipartisan group of senators yesterday, paid for in part with health care policies.
- Providers have been warning that they wouldn't be happy if the remaining provider bailout money was used to pay for bridges and roads.
- Hospitals in particular would have been an unwelcome opponent for advocates of the infrastructure package, which will already have a tough time getting across the finish line.
Between the lines: Hospitals may have been the most powerful industry group awaiting the list of infrastructure pay-fors, but pharmacy benefit managers may be the bigger winners.
- The proposal delays the Trump administration's rebate rule, which would force prescription drug discounts to occur at the pharmacy counter — a massive disruption to PBMs' business model.
- Democrats will likely try to fully repeal the regulation in a partisan package down the road.
What we're watching: The infrastructure proposal also includes savings from reducing what Medicare spends on unused drugs that are left over from single-use vials.
- This may sound like a niche policy, but drugmakers stand to lose money from it, and thus probably won't like it.