by Gordon Hensley | Feb 21, 2019 | advocacy, Business, CMS, health care, lobbying, Medicare Cuts, Pharma, U.S. House, U.S. Senate
Among the most complex but significant issues in the unfolding debate about prescription drug pricing reform is pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) rebates — or, so-called “rebates” — as many objective observers see them as kickbacks or opaque...
by Gordon Hensley | Aug 7, 2018 | Business, Media Relations, Pharma, Trump
Its not often one sees a federal agency head double the output of news releases and, according to Fierce Pharma, put out 53 policy statements in the first half of 2018 — up from just 4 during the same time period last year. That’s impressive by any...
by Gordon Hensley | Mar 10, 2018 | advocacy, Business, CMS, health care, Health Reform, Pharma, Trump
This week marked a true rarity for the Trump Administration: a coordinated, effective burst of reform-minded tough talk from three separate health policy leaders, in three consecutive days. In rat-tat-tat fashion, his HHS Secretary, CMS Administrator and FDA...
by Gordon Hensley | Mar 1, 2018 | advocacy, Business, CMS, health care, Pharma, SNF
It’s an election year. Congress has to appear to be “doing something” about the opioid epidemic engulfing communities across the U.S. The good news, it is: Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced a bipartisan bill this week, the “CARA 2.0 Act of...
by Gordon Hensley | Jan 12, 2017 | advocacy, Business, Campaign 2016, CMS, GOP Politics, health care, Health Reform, Pharma, Trump
Putting aside that PEOTUS Donald Trump convincingly crushed his first news conference in months — and did so by demonizing the media in general and Buzzfeed in particular — there was plenty of substantive policy news. Trump’s trashing of the...
by Gordon Hensley | Sep 6, 2016 | advocacy, Business, CMS, health care, Pharma
The only Washington, DC-based advocacy organization representing the interests of the nation’s long term care (LTC) pharmacy sector, the Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition (SCPC), scored a major coup in August when it welcomed a major national provider of LTC...