Sen. Wyden questions payments to docs serving on advisory panel for pain issues

Modern Healthcare

  • A high-ranking Senate Democrat is pushing for more answers on why doctors and patient advocates with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry served on a panel that advises the federal government on pain issues. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon says he is “even more concerned” about these apparent conflicts of interest after receiving a response from the National Institutes of Health, which vetted and selected the panel members. In a letter sent to the Obama administration's top health official, Wyden requests a series of documents related to the pain panel, including financial disclosure forms filled out by its members. The panel attracted attention late last year when several members bashed a federal plan to recommend doctors reduce their prescribing of painkillers used to treat chronic pain, such as OxyContin.

  • A struggling Illinois health insurance co-op is suing the federal government, claiming it is being shortchanged $72.8 million in promised payments under the Affordable Care Act. Chicago-based Land of Lincoln Health filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington. At least four other insurers have filed similar claims over the so-called risk-corridor payments, a temporary provision of the healthcare law meant to help unprofitable insurers and stabilize consumer prices during the first three years of the law's new insurance exchanges. Land of Lincoln's balance sheet has been deteriorating rapidly. The 3-year-old startup lost $90 million in 2015 and $7 million in the first quarter of 2016. As it fights to remain solvent, Land of Lincoln also announced it will withdraw from the group market for 2017 and is now informing more than 800 employers with contracts.

  • The White House has promised that President Barack Obama would veto the long-delayed response of the Republican-controlled Congress to the president's request for fighting the Zika virus, saying it provided too little money and contained too many partisan provisions. The $1.1 billion measure had already appeared sure to die in the Senate at the hands of filibustering Democrats backing Obama's $1.9 billion request and opposing spending cuts that House Republicans added to the measure.
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