The current flu season is particularly deadly due to the specific virus strains combined with a "fluke" that rendered this year's vaccine less effective than desired, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells Axios. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced interim results of the vaccine's overall effectiveness, which is 36%.
Why this matters: Healthy individuals are being struck down by the flu this season and some communities have taken steps like shutting schools to combat the contagion, which has killed at least 63 kids in the U.S. since the start of this flu season in the fall. While the CDC will update its influenza data soon, authorities say early indications do not show a slowdown yet.
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter said last month he would let insurance companies sell policies that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act. And yesterday, Blue Cross of Idaho took him up on it.
The bottom line: This is a huge test for Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar. And if he doesn’t step in enforce the ACA now, the Trump administration could ultimately find itself tied up in just as much ACA litigation as the Obama administration. (Medicaid work requirements are also being challenged in the courts.)
Americans continue to spend a lot of money on health care. Don't expect that to change. New preliminary federal data show annual health care spending climbed 4.6% to $3.5 trillion in 2017 — higher than the 4.3% growth rate in 2016 and still a lot higher than the broader inflation rate.
The bottom line: The new data reinforce the point that hospital visits, doctor appointments, surgeries, prescriptions and other health care services are gobbling up more of the U.S. economy right now and in the future at the expense of other societal priorities.
Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray will meet tomorrow with senators and insurance executives to discuss the opioid crisis. "It’s similar to the health care round tables that Sen. Murray and I had, which were so successful in the fall [and] helped us come to a consensus on Alexander-Murray," Alexander told reporters.
Between the lines: Congress has already agreed to spend $6 billion on the opioid crisis and related mental-health issues, but this meeting suggests lawmakers are still interested understanding more about the industry's ability to help and control the epidemic.
Blue Cross of Idaho is taking up the state’s controversial offer to sell insurance plans that don’t comply with the Affordable Care Act — a move many legal experts believe is illegal, and which policy experts say will undermine the ACA.
What’s next: It’s not clear whether the Trump administration will step in to enforce the ACA’s requirements. If it doesn’t, more conservative states will likely follow Idaho’s lead, effectively rolling back some of the ACA’s most substantial consumer protections and coverage mandates.
President Trump’s budget proposal embraced two measures to help stabilize the Affordable Care Act. And Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy network funded by the Koch brothers, is not happy about it.
The intrigue: Trump’s budget called for repealing the ACA, but also for funding two stabilization programs — cost-sharing reductions and risk corridors — that aren't popular with conservatives.
