With Ben Leonard, Dan Goldberg and Daniel Lippman
MENTAL HEALTH HOPES — With one other week of deal-making on the Hill forward, one well being concern is more and more being mentioned: psychological well being provisions.
Republicans and Democrats alike advised Ben and your host that psychological well being is a goal to be included in an omnibus deal — and that conversations had been ongoing final week.
Sen. Invoice Cassidy (R-La.) advised Pulse he appears to be like to get his Psychological Well being Reauthorization Act of 2022 included within the bundle, and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) advised Axios he was assured an habit remedy bundle could be added as nicely.
A number of others, throughout events, chambers and committees, have typically emphasised the necessity to handle psychological well being in a year-end invoice. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) advised Ben final week that his well being workers is engaged on a psychological well being coverage they usually may need extra particulars concerning the measures to share quickly.
Particular curiosity teams even have requested leaders on the Hill to incorporate quite a few psychological well being provisions.
A number of supplier teams, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Faculty of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Affiliation, despatched a letter Friday to congressional leaders, asking for laws that promotes the mixing of main care and psychological well being, boosts the behavioral well being workforce and ensures parity in psychological and different well being protection.
And the American Hospital Affiliation despatched a current letter to Congress, addressing psychological well being, asking leaders to strengthen the care workforce, loosen rules for psychiatric amenities and alter fee insurance policies round behavioral well being.
A few of these asks are included in laws launched earlier this yr — locations congressional aides urged trying to see the place the dialog might go within the coming weeks.
Earlier this yr, senators launched three bipartisan dialogue drafts of laws to deal with psychological well being, which urged methods telehealth, Medicare and Medicaid could possibly be leveraged sooner or later, amongst different issues.
And one Home invoice, the Restoring Hope for Psychological Well being and Properly-Being Act of 2022, overwhelmingly handed, although the Senate has but to vote on it.
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TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, Megan R. Wilson talks with Alice Miranda Ollstein about Washington’s high pharmaceutical foyer, which is performing some self-reflection and commissioning a report that appears at its advocacy within the run-up to its most consequential legislative loss in many years.
AMERICANS REALLY NEED TO GET MORE FLU SHOTS — At the moment kicks off Nationwide Influenza Vaccination Week, and the CDC will double down on attempting to get extra People vaccinated as flu ranges throughout the nation are excessive, and hospitals stay below stress, Krista reviews.
When flu began circulating earlier this yr, the CDC observed a drop in flu vaccine protection charges amongst adults by hundreds of thousands of doses in contrast with the identical time final yr.
These numbers have elevated in current weeks, as indicated by the CDC’s flu map, which has grow to be more and more crimson. However, total, the charges stay comparatively low. By late October, simply over 26 % of adults 18 and older had acquired a flu shot. Different charges inside sure teams have declined in contrast with final yr: Amongst pregnant girls, for example, protection has fallen 12 % over final yr and greater than 20 % since 2020.
The vaccine is an efficient match this yr with the virus that’s circulating, Erin Burns, affiliate director of communications for the CDC’s flu division, advised POLITICO. The CDC has no definitive reply as to why fewer persons are getting their flu photographs. It could possibly be a results of fewer circumstances of the flu within the final two years or common vaccine fatigue, she mentioned.
“We all know it’s not a query of provide as a result of there’s loads of vaccine on the market,” Burns mentioned. So it’s on the demand facet that we’re seeing and the explanations. … I feel we will simply speculate about what these are.”
The CDC has partnered with the Advert Council, the AMA and different organizations to succeed in extra People with their message to get a flu shot, inserting emphasis on reaching Black and Hispanic communities, which have traditionally had decrease flu vaccination charges and better hospitalization charges.
WHERE ANTI-ABORTION ADVOCATES GO NEXT — After a collection of massive wins in state legislatures this fall, Republicans intend to make use of their expanded energy to additional prohibit abortions, POLITICO’s Megan Messerly reviews.
Come January, state legislators plan to work on new restrictions — at the same time as a divided Congress is unlikely to cross substantial modifications on the federal stage.
Including further restrictions to abortion drugs and upping the penalties for docs who break standing legal guidelines are among the many modifications Republicans within the new congresses are eyeing.
The brand new insurance policies might make it tougher for folks to get abortions, particularly these in Southern states that also allow them, like Florida, North Carolina and Virginia — which have grow to be havens of entry in a area stuffed with restrictions.
Counter to the concept Democrats’ surprising midterm efficiency was fueled by a want to guard abortion rights, many Republican state representatives have seen their victories as a cause to proceed championing restrictions.
INDIANA ABORTION LAW IS BLOCKED, AGAIN — An Indiana Jewish group scored a victory for abortion rights Friday when a county choose agreed that the state’s new anti-abortion legislation violated their non secular freedom rights below a legislation former Gov. Mike Pence signed in 2016, Dan reviews.
Hoosier Jews for Alternative sued below the state’s Non secular Freedom Restoration Act, arguing that their faith compels them to abort a fetus to guard a pregnant particular person’s bodily and psychological well being in circumstances past what the brand new legislation permits.
In August, Indiana handed a legislation that prohibits abortion besides in circumstances of rape, incest, deadly fetal anomaly or life endangerment.
What modifications: For now, nothing. The Indiana Supreme Courtroom issued an order in October that allowed abortions to proceed whereas it thought of whether or not new restrictions violate the state’s structure. However the order gives one other automobile for abortion proponents to problem the legislation ought to their effort earlier than the state’s excessive courtroom fail.
Why this issues: Marion County Decide Heather Welch dismissed the state’s argument that life begins at conception, noting that different state statutes did “not endow zygotes, embryos, and pre-viability fetuses with the authorized standing of human being. The Supreme Courtroom already acknowledged in Pastime Foyer that the query of when life begins is a non secular one which the State might not reply legislatively or as a factual matter,” she wrote.
If that place is upheld, it might cease the state from prohibiting anybody who believes they’ve a non secular obligation to assist girls get hold of an abortion. An analogous case is being thought of in Florida.
INDIANA JUDGE ALLOWS PROBE OF ABORTION DOC TO MOVE FORWARD — An Indiana choose on Friday dominated that state Lawyer Normal Todd Rokita broke the legislation when he publicly mentioned his investigation of Caitlin Bernard, the physician who got here to nationwide consideration this summer time after she carried out an abortion on a 10-year previous rape sufferer from Ohio, Dan writes.
However Marion County Decide Heather Welch declined to dam the Republican lawyer common from continuing, saying she now not had jurisdiction as a result of the matter had been turned over to the state’s medical licensing board earlier within the week.
COVID’S HOLD ON XI — Chinese language President Xi Jinping’s future standing may rely on protests in opposition to his authorities’s pandemic lockdowns, a high U.S. intelligence official mentioned Sunday.
Avril Haines, the U.S. director of Nationwide Intelligence, mentioned the demonstrations countered the federal government’s pandemic narrative, POLITICO’s America Hernandez reviews.
“The way it develops might be necessary to Xi’s standing,” Haines mentioned. But it surely’s “not one thing we see as being a risk to stability at this second or regime change or something like that,” she added.
The feedback come as a number of cities in China have begun loosening Covid restrictions, POLITICO’s Hanne Cokelaere reviews.
The principles, largely dictating testing and quarantine necessities, led to a wave of historic protests.
Now, some cities are closing Covid testing stations, dropping necessities for adverse checks to make use of public transit, parks or supermarkets.
Karen Consolation has been employed because the deputy assistant secretary for fairness, range and inclusion and chief range officer for the Division of Well being and Human Companies. She most just lately was chief worker expertise officer on the Division of Agriculture.
POLITICO’s Connor O’Brien and Bryan Bender report {that a} coming legislation might overturn the army’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
A brand new evaluation from the Annenberg Public Coverage Middle explores the timeless fable of suicides being linked to the vacation season.
The Washington Submit’s Fenit Nirappil and Jacqueline Dupree write concerning the rise in Covid hospitalizations after Thanksgiving.
