Biden hits the road to sell Democrats’ record

What do pandemic preparedness, psychological well being care companies, and over-the-counter listening to aids have in frequent? They’re all issues President Joe Biden touted on the marketing campaign path this week as he tries to take care of Democrats’ majorities in Congress within the midterm elections Nov. 8.

Biden can also be campaigning on his help for abortion, promising to signal a invoice codifying abortion rights if Democrats retain management of the Home and Senate. Current polls, nevertheless, have proven abortion slipping as a prime voting challenge.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Name, and Mary Agnes Carey of KHN.

Among the many takeaways from this week’s episode:

• Amongst initiatives lately highlighted by the White Home is a plan to arrange for future pandemics and thwart any bioterror assaults. However the query is the place that cash would come from. Republicans in Congress have already got balked at offering extra money for public well being funding for some covid-19 and monkeypox packages.
• Highly effective advocates within the Senate — Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) — have supported laws to advance the nationwide public well being technique, however there may be little or no time on this session to push such a bundle by means of. And Burr is retiring on the finish of the yr, so it is not clear who on the Republican facet of the aisle is perhaps keen to take up the baton.
• Though the abortion challenge gave the impression to be serving to Democrats’ midterm prospects after the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade in June, a few of that pleasure could also be receding because the financial system and different points transfer to the forefront of voters’ issues. However there are few precedents in latest U.S. historical past to information voters in evaluating the difficulty of abortion immediately or reacting to such a significant, sudden change.
• Even when the Democrats had been to maintain maintain of the levers of energy on Capitol Hill, they’d have a troublesome time pushing by means of an abortion invoice. Nobody expects the occasion to take management of 60 seats within the Senate — wanted to beat a filibuster – and Democrats won’t have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, both. Practically all Republicans are anticipated to oppose any such effort.
• One impediment to passing nationwide laws securing abortion rights is that over the half-century since deciding Roe, the Supreme Courtroom has authorized a wide range of state legal guidelines that restrict entry, akin to permitting dad and mom to be notified if a teen had been to hunt an abortion. Many Democrats object to these restrictions and would wish to exclude them from any new legislation, whereas different members of Congress would demand them.
• Biden’s promise was designed to remind voters who care about this challenge to return out to the polls in three weeks, however it was additionally a reminder to many progressives of the failure of the administration to arrange and have a technique to guard abortion rights prepared when the Supreme Courtroom ruling got here down.
• Indiana Lawyer Common Todd Rokita just isn’t backing down from his criticism of an Indianapolis physician who carried out an abortion on a 10-year-old Ohio woman who couldn’t get the process there due to a strict new state legislation. The physician has proven that she adopted all Indiana procedures, however Rokita’s criticism continues to concern others who help abortion entry. That chilling impact could be a part of Rokita’s technique.
• Pharmacists are additionally apprehensive about their legal responsibility in states with strict abortion limits. Federal officers have introduced a probe of CVS and Walgreens after complaints that they aren’t readily filling prescriptions for medicine that can be utilized for a lot of medical indications but additionally may terminate an early being pregnant.
• An advisory committee for the FDA this week advisable eradicating from the market a drug used to forestall preterm births. The drug, Makena, was first authorized in 2011 by means of an accelerated pathway that requires the corporate to conduct follow-up research assessing the drug’s efficacy. These trials discovered that Makena did not assist pregnancies progress to later gestational age or enhance the well being of the untimely infants.
• If the FDA accepts the committee’s advice, it will be a uncommon step. It will be solely the second time {that a} drug authorized on the accelerated pathway has been withdrawn over a sponsor’s objections.
• This week additionally marked a milestone for folks with delicate to average listening to loss. Beginning final Monday, the federal government authorized over-the-counter gross sales of listening to aids. The transfer is anticipated to dramatically scale back the costs of the gadgets and open a doubtlessly large market of customers now capable of afford them.

Plus, for further credit score, the panelists advocate their favourite well being coverage tales of the week they assume you must learn, too:

Julie Rovner: KHN and NPR’s “Kids’ Mental Health Care Leaves Parents in Debt and in the Shadows,” by Yuki Noguchi

Sarah Karlin-Smith: Scientific American’s “Some People Really Are Mosquito Magnets, and They’re Stuck That Way,” By Daniel Leonard

Sandhya Raman: Journal of the Nationwide Most cancers Institute’s “Use of Straighteners and Other Hair Products and Incident Uterine Cancer,” by Che-Jung Chang, et al.

Mary Agnes Carey: KHN’s “Blind to Problems: How VA’s Electronic Record System Shuts Out Visually Impaired Patients,” by Darius Tahir

Additionally talked about on this week’s episode:

KHN’s “Say What? Hearing Aids Available Over-the-Counter for as Low as $199, and Without a Prescription,” by Phil Galewitz

Politico’s “‘Michigan Could Become Texas’ — Voters See Stark Choice on Abortion Referendum” by Alice Miranda Ollstein