With Obama Re-Elected, States Scramble Over Health Law
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and ROBERT PEAR
After nearly three years of legal and political threats that kept President Obama’s health care law in a constant state of uncertainty, his re-election on Tuesday all but guarantees that the historic legislation will survive.
Now comes another big hurdle: making it work.
The election came just 10 days before a critical deadline for states in carrying out the law, and many that were waiting for the outcome must now hustle to comply. Such efforts will coincide with epic negotiations between Mr. Obama and Congress over federal spending and taxes, where the administration will inevitably face pressure to scale back some of the costliest provisions of the law.
Mr. Obama faces crucial choices about strategy that could determine the success of the health care overhaul: Will the administration, for example, try to address the concerns of insurers, employers and some consumer groups who worry that the law’s requirements could increase premiums? Or will it insist on the stringent standards favored by liberal policy advocates inside and outside the government?
But for now — with Democrats retaining control of the Senate and Mitt Romney’s vow to “repeal and replace” the law no longer a threat — supporters are exulting.
“For our district and for our country, the debate on Obamacare is over,” declared Bill Foster, a Democrat elected Tuesday to the House from a suburban Chicago district.
Many supporters feel one of Mr. Obama’s most important tasks will be to step up efforts to promote and explain the law to a public that remains sharply divided and confused about it. In exit polls on Tuesday, nearly half of voters said the law should be either partly or fully repealed.
“There is still a tremendous amount of disinformation out there,” said Jeff Goldsmith, a health industry analyst based in Virginia. “If you actually are going to implement this law, people need to know what’s in it — not just the puppies-and-ice-cream parts, but ‘Here are the broader social changes intended and how they can help you.’ ”
Sanofi Halves Price of Cancer Drug Zaltrap After Sloan-Kettering Rejection
By ANDREW POLLACK
In an unusual move, a big drug company said on Thursday that it would effectively cut in half the price of a new cancer drug after a leading cancer center said it would not use the drug because it was too expensive.
The move — announced by Sanofi for the colon cancer drug Zaltrap — could be a sign of resistance to the unfettered increase in the prices of cancer drugs, some of which cost more than $100,000 a year and increase survival by a few months at best.
Zaltrap came to market in August at a price of about $11,000 a month. Soon after, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York decided not to use the drug, saying it was twice as expensive but no more effective than a similar medicine, Avastin from Genentech. Both drugs improved median survival by 1.4 months, doctors there said.
Three doctors at Sloan-Kettering publicized the cancer center’s decision last month in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times.
“Ignoring the cost of care is no longer tenable,” they wrote. ”Soaring spending has presented the medical community with a new obligation. When choosing treatments for patients, we have to consider the financial strains they may cause alongside the benefits they may deliver.”
Sanofi executives argued that the price they had set was very similar to that of Avastin. “The intent was not to charge a premium,” Christopher A. Viehbacher, the chief executive of Sanofi, said in an interview last month.
Sloan-Kettering, he said, was basing its price comparison on a dose of Avastin that was half the dose Sanofi used in its own comparison.
On Thursday, Sanofi backed down. “We believe that Zaltrap is priced competitively as used in real-world situations,” it said in a statement. “However, we recognize that there was some market resistance to the perceived relative price of Zaltrap in the U.S. — especially in light of low awareness of Zaltrap in the U.S. market. As such, we are taking immediate action across the U.S. oncology community to reduce the net cost of Zaltrap.”
Attacking Ailments With Small Doses
By ELIZABETH OLSON
DISAPPOINTED voters, runners with blisters and headache sufferers alike are getting some unexpected relief from a pop-up pharmacy that opened this week in the nation’s capital.
The “help shop,” which offers low-dose drugs for everyday woes, is the idea of Help Remedies, a start-up company that sells minimalist white packets directed at single medical issues like nausea, headache or insomnia.
The company, the collaboration of two marketers, is creating quirky scenes including a high-heel wearing model walking on a treadmill to market its “Help, I have a blister” packet of bandages, or a performer sleeping in a store window to drum up interest for its “Help, I can’t sleep” caplets.
This week, shoppers and passers-by attracted by the napper, for example, could go inside the temporary pharmacy to investigate its 10 over-the-counter remedies for conditions like body aches and allergies.
The store’s team fanned out to polling stations on Tuesday to hand out its headache packets, and then on Wednesday to the nearby Republican National Committee to share nausea relief. Their marketing may be seen as fun and zany, but the company founders, Richard Fine and Nathan Frank, say they have a serious message.
“We want people to see that there are simple solutions,” said Mr. Fine, who said his straightforward approach was influenced by his parents, who are medical professors specializing in epidemiology.
“Most people shop by brand or product, and it’s difficult to know what you should be buying and taking,” he said. “It is a confusing space for people who are not experts.”
Mr. Fine and Mr. Frank, who met while working in branding and advertising, decided to try to streamline what they see as an antiquated and cluttered pharmaceutical market.
“We wanted to take what’s basic and works, and make it human,” Mr. Fine said. Their strategy of providing single ingredients in low dosages is aimed at basic medical conditions that do not require hospitalization.
Maine may warm to Obamacare after Democratic sweep
Posted Nov. 08, 2012, at 2:24 p.m.
North of the Mason-Dixon Line, it’s hard to find a state that has given more of a cold shoulder to President Barack Obama’s health law than Maine.
It was one of 27 states that joined the suit to overturn the law, which was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court.
This year the state not only showed no interest in expanding Medicaid as the law requires, it took steps to shrink the rolls of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, leaving thousands without coverage. In September, the state sued the federal government to reduce the program further, arguing a provision in the law barring states from making it harder for people to qualify was invalid.
But Maine’s voters may have short-circuited further resistance Tuesday by initiating a Democratic sweep that flipped control of both houses of the State Legislature, and is now poised to challenge Gov. Paul LePage, a tea party Republican opposed to the law.
“A new direction is likely to prevail,” Terry Hayes, Assistant Democratic Leader in the Maine House, said in an interview. “We will look to fully implement the Affordable Care Act.”
LePage congratulated the victorious lawmakers, but his spokeswoman had no comment on how the political switch might affect implementation of the health law.
“It certainly changes the dynamics,” said Maine Sen. Roger Katz, a Republican member of the appropriations committee. But he noted that LePage could veto Democratic efforts to restore Medicaid cuts, or to expand the program. “Hopefully we can work together,”said the Augusta lawmaker.
Maine is one of five states — Minnesota, Colorado, New York and Oregon — in which Democrats won control of the legislature Tuesday. But the shifts in Maine and Minnesota – where a Democratic governor supportive of the law had previously battled with Republicans — are likely to have the greatest impact on the health law’s implementation.
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