This Week in Congress

Appropriations

This week, by a vote of 220 to 207, the House passed a six-bill FY’23 appropriations minibus. The package includes the Transportation-HUD, Agriculture, Energy-Water, Financial Services, Interior-Environment and Military Construction-VA bills. It is unclear if the House will take up the Labor-HHS-Education, Commerce-Justice-Science, and State and Foreign Operations bills next week, or if those bills, along with Defense, Homeland Security, and Legislative Branch bills will be taken up after the November election.

Abortion

The House passed two bills with the goal of ensuring access to abortion in the post-Roe era. The first bill, which passed by a vote of 222 to 205, would protect the right to travel across state lines for abortion services. The second bill, passed by a vote of 219-210, would explicitly give health care providers the right to provide abortion services and their patients the right to obtain them, invalidating a variety of state restrictions that were enacted in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. At this point, neither bill has the votes to advance in the Senate.

Birth Control

This week, by a vote of 228-195, with eight Republicans voting in favor, and two voting present, the House passed legislation to codify access to contraception. But the legislation (H.R. 8373) is unlikely to become law, after anti-abortion groups tied it to both emergency contraceptives and the abortion pill mifepristone.

Same-Sex Marriage

The House passed a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages under federal law and extend legal protections to all married couples, a reaction to concern that the Supreme Court might reconsider a ruling extending those rights. The House’s 267-157 vote on the bill included 47 Republicans joining all Democrats in support. It is unclear whether the legislation has the votes the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate.

Other Legislation and Happenings Around the Nation

Monkeypox

Statistics: As of today, 71 countries have reported 15,165 cases. The US has 2,593 confirmed cases in 45 states and Puerto Rico.

Research: This week the Administration announced a $140 million, 22-target research agenda for monkeypox to better understand and handle rising case counts across the country. The agenda aims to improve data on transmission, testing, vaccines, equitable treatments, and environmental factors. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will lead the effort.

Sexual Health Clinics Are Underfunded and Ill-Equipped: Clinics that treat sexually transmitted diseases—already struggling to contain an explosive increase in infections such as syphilis and gonorrhea—now find themselves on the front lines in the nation’s fight to control the rapidly growing monkeypox outbreak. After decades of underfunding and 2½ years into the COVID-19 pandemic that severely disrupted care, clinic staffers and public health officials say the clinics are ill-equipped for yet another epidemic. “America does not have what it needs to adequately and totally fight monkeypox,” said David Harvey, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “We are already stretched to capacity.” Dr. Shira Heisler, medical director of the Detroit Public Health STD Clinic, said she’s proud of the quality of care she provides but simply doesn’t have time to see every patient who needs care. “We just don’t have the bodies,” she said. “It’s a total infrastructure collapse.” The article can be found here.

World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Meeting: This week the WHO held an emergency committee meeting to decide whether monkeypox represents a global health emergency. It was the second time the emergency committee convened to discuss monkeypox. At the last meeting held on June 23, it was decided that the monkeypox outbreak did not constitute a global health emergency. After this week’s meeting, the WHO said that it will discuss the latest evidence and conditions and announce its decision in the coming days.

Monkeypox Letters

NCSD, July 19, 2022: The National Coalition of STD Directors championed a letter to House and Senate Appropriations Chairs Leahy and DeLauro and Ranking Members Shelby and Granger. The letter, signed by 32 non-partisan national, state, and local public health organizations, requests a minimum of $100 million for FY’23, to ensure sufficient funding to launch a robust response to the monkeypox outbreak. The letter can be found here.

Senator Patty Murray, July 19, 2022: Senator Murray, Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra concerning the U.S. response to monkeypox. The letter points out the current steps the Administration has taken address the outbreak but states that more needs to be done to ensure that public health officials have the information and resources needed quickly address the outbreak. The letter can be found here.

Speaker Pelosi, July 18, 2022: U.S. House Speaker Pelosi also sent a letter to HHS Secretary Becerra, urging Federal health officials to step up their response to monkeypox, pointing specifically to the “urgent need” in San Francisco. The Speaker stated that the current supply of monkeypox vaccine was “woefully inadequate to meet the current need,” and pressed the government to significantly expand capacity “so that anyone who qualifies can easily and quickly receive their two vaccine doses. More must be done to expedite the distribution of the vaccine to curb this quickly expanding and painful public health threat,” Pelosi wrote. She also called for making virus testing more widely available, warning that “time is of the essence.” The letter can be found here.

Rep. Maloney, July 20, 2022: House Oversight and Reform Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in a letter HHS Secretary Becerra, called for more monkeypox vaccine, treatment, and testing access. “In my own district, I have seen how the spread has threatened the health of my constituents — particularly the LGBTQ+ community and people with less access to health care.” Maloney argued that while the administration has stepped up testing efforts and ordered thousands of monkeypox vaccines, commercial labs still don’t have the capacity to test everyone who may have been exposed and many hospitals aren’t testing. The letter can be found here.

COVID-19

Infections: The rapidly spreading BA.5 coronavirus subvariant is causing a surge in infections across the US, and more people are catching COVID-19 for the second or third time. BA.5 is now causing about 80 percent of new COVID-19 infections. On average, people who are getting reinfected now were last infected about nine months ago.

340(b)

On July 15, a bipartisan group of 181 House lawmakers urged HHS Secretary Becerra to stop drug makers from restricting discounts to hospitals in the 340B program by employing “steep” fines and “all available enforcement actions.” The letter is the latest development in a dispute between drug companies and hospitals over the drug discount program. This month, 18 drug companies were restricting the amount of 340B drug discounts they provide to hospitals that dispense drugs through multiple contract pharmacies. Merck filed the latest of 14 drug company lawsuits against the government to avoid potential monetary penalties from the Health Resources & Services Administration for imposing such restrictions. But there are questions if litigation might not resolve the debate on 340B statute interpretation, and if the current round of cases could end with different interpretations in different jurisdictions. It is also not out of the question that once the current round of cases is decided, there is another round of different 340B program requirements that are not defined in the 340B statute and for which HHS does not have rule-making authority.

Medication Abortions

CVS Health is asking pharmacists in some states to verify that a few of the prescriptions they provide will not be used end a pregnancy. A spokesman said that the drugstore chain recently started doing this for methotrexate and misoprostol, two drugs used in medication abortions but also to treat other conditions. The policy started the first week in July in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Texas. CVS officials further stated that state laws that restrict the dispensing of medications used for abortions have forced the company to start the validations and noted that some of the laws come with criminal penalties. The drugstore chain is asking care providers to help by including their diagnosis on the prescriptions, and states that CVS will continue to fill prescriptions for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies.

Mental Health Crisis Hotline

The US Government has launched a new nationwide phone number to connect directly to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. A call or text to 988 will connect callers to mental health professionals with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Veterans can press “1” after dialing 988 to connect directly to the Veterans Crisis Lifeline which serves the nation’s veterans, active duty service members, National Guard and Reserve members, and those who support them. For texts, veterans should continue to text the Veterans Crisis Lifeline short code: 838255. More on the 988 is available here.