In a Republican-led Home, anti-science probes high the agenda

WASHINGTON — The Covid-19 investigations are coming.

When Republicans take management of the Home of Representatives in January, because the AP projected Wednesday, they’ve made it clear that probing President Biden’s response to the pandemic will probably be their high precedence. Holding the bulk offers them new powers to subpoena officers and others and to set the agenda for key committees.

Republicans throughout the nation campaigned on anti-science rhetoric, lobbing intense criticism of the Biden administration’s vaccine and masks mandates and its spending on the pandemic response.

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Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who is about to chair the Power and Commerce Committee, has signaled explicit curiosity in probing the origins of the pandemic, together with analysis funded by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, and distant education suggestions.

After his vilification on the marketing campaign path, Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses Director Anthony Fauci might be one other goal, and well being officers together with well being secretary Xavier Becerra, and Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure may additionally face extra warmth from the Home in oversight hearings.

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Home Republicans’ energy will probably be restricted, nonetheless, now that Democrats managed to retain management of the Senate. Divided authorities will pressure Republicans to focus extra on oversight and bipartisan bargaining than they may have in any other case.

Home Democrats’ efforts to look at the Trump administration’s dealing with of the early days of the pandemic may even seemingly wind down, as the present coronavirus oversight subcommittee of the Home Committee on Oversight and Reform might be disbanded beneath a Republican majority. The social gathering in cost has broad authority to find out the panel’s construction.

It is going to be a radical change from Home Democrats’ strategy to the pandemic. Throughout their four-year tenure in management, they unilaterally handed billions of {dollars} in Covid-19 reduction funding, backed Biden administration officers, and broadly supported extra public well being spending.

The change in Home management to GOP management will elevate up a brand new era of Republican leaders who haven’t chaired committees earlier than, as the previous Republican chairmen of each main well being care committees could have retired by January.

It’s unclear precisely who will chair the highly effective Methods & Means Committee. One candidate for the slot, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), hasn’t laid out his well being care priorities in nice element. Nonetheless, he launched a invoice final month that may pressure Medicare to make protection choices on particular person medication, not courses of medication — a transparent rebuke to Medicare’s restrictive, wide-ranging protection resolution primarily based on knowledge associated to Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm.

Now that Republicans could have extra leverage in negotiations over authorities funding and the debt ceiling, additionally they could have extra affect to demand modifications to Medicare total.

Republicans’ official marketing campaign platform supplies scant element in regards to the challenge, past a obscure promise to “save and strengthen” Medicare and guarantee its monetary solvency.

However a big caucus of Home Republican lawmakers produced a coverage paper earlier this 12 months that outlined a number of concrete modifications that may upend the established order for all the well being care business, and beneficiaries as properly. The proposals embody elevating the eligibility age for this system, encouraging extra competitors between conventional Medicare plans and personal plans, reducing what Medicare pays hospitals for off-site companies, and slashing subsidies to insurers and hospitals.

McMorris Rodgers can also be hoping to deal with telehealth coverage, onshore manufacturing, and laws on pharmacy profit managers, that are middlemen between insurers and drug makers that weren’t regulated in Democrats’ drug pricing reforms.

One different new challenge Republicans may pursue is extra aggressive regulation of nonprofit hospitals. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) final Congress launched a substantive hospital pricing reform plan that may regulate what hospitals cost industrial insurers, beef up the Federal Commerce Fee’s scrutiny of hospital mergers, and scale back monetary incentives for hospitals to purchase up doctor practices.

A fellow Republican lawmaker from Indiana, Rep. Victoria Spartz, has leveraged her publish on the Home Power & Commerce Committee to introduce a spate of hospital laws and a crackdown on anticompetitive contracting practices.

Many Republicans oppose the Inflation Discount Act’s insurance policies on drug pricing reform, however it’s unclear whether or not they’ll aggressively pursue repeal of the insurance policies, as they’re politically well-liked and save the federal authorities cash.

The switch of energy in January may even get rid of the potential for passing partisan well being care laws like Democrats’ drug pricing reforms, as Democrats will probably be unable to make use of the price range reconciliation course of to perform their legislative agenda.

The win additionally throws the Home Democrats’ management into chaos, because it’s unclear whether or not Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has overwhelmingly pushed Home Democrats’ well being care agenda lately, will keep in Congress if she could be main the minority.