One Step Closer to Healthcare Reform

By: Katie Lapins, CIS Director of Small and Mid-Market Pharma
katielapins@cis-partners.com

The House of Representatives passed its version of healthcare reform on Saturday, November 7, 2009. As described, the purpose of H.R. 3962 is, “To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.” With almost 2,000 pages, I think they covered “other purposes” pretty well.

If you have been following the various legislative proposals that have been presented, you’re probably wondering how H.R. 3962 differs from the original proposal, H.R. 3200. These changes are highlighted below in red.
* Note: The court injunction currently prohibits the publishing of AMP, and this legislation will not overrule the injunction.

Implementing these changes in as few as eight weeks may create an operational challenge for manufacturers, but based on my experience, the majority will figure it out. However, the changes will also pose a challenge for federal and state government agencies. Manufacturers usually only have one, maybe two systems to update, but the systems used by the various government agencies are different, as evidenced by the various formats of the Medicaid rebates required.

The next few steps we would anticipate in this process are for the Senate to vote, for the two bills to be “harmonized” and consolidated into one, and then for the bill to be presented to President Obama for approval. Depending on the timing of these activities, it appears that changes could be imminent for manufacturers.

CIS will continue to monitor all of the activities and will continue to post updates as they become available. To see the full version of H.R. 3962 click here.