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Democrats pushed legislation buttressing the 2010 health care law and curbing prescription drug prices through the House Thursday, advancing a bill that has no chance of surviving in the Senate or getting President Donald Trump's signature and seemed engineered with next year's elections in mind. The measure forced Republicans into the uncomfortable political position of casting a single vote on legislation that contained popular drug pricing restraints they support, plus language strengthening President Barack Obama's health care statute that they oppose. (Fram, 5/16)

By combining the bills to shore up the Affordable Care Act with several bipartisan measures to address high drug prices, Democrats had hoped to lure in some Republican support. But the minority party did not bite, calling the package “a bailout” for the health law and instead introducing a Republican bill that included only the drug-pricing measures, plus an extension of funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps. “By jamming together our bipartisan efforts to lower drug costs with clearly partisan bills to bail out Obamacare, Democrats are once again putting politics — and partisanship — over bipartisan policy,” said Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon. “Sadly, House Democrats couldn’t pass up a chance to play gotcha politics.” (Goodnough, 5/16)

The 234-to-183 vote, with every Democrat and five Republicans casting ballots in favor, gave a partisan hue even to three strategies to boost the availability of generic drugs that initially attracted GOP support. Those were merged, however, with measures that would block several Trump administration policies that Democrats characterize as “sabotaging” the ACA. The upshot was a barbed debate: Democrats accused Republicans of disregarding consumers’ need for affordable, quality health care, and Republicans accused Democrats of thwarting a rare opportunity for bipartisanship. (Goldstein, 5/16)

The legislation includes three bipartisan drug pricing provisions restricting anti-competitive behaviors by pharmaceutical companies alongside a slate of proposals reversing Trump administration policies designed to undermine the Affordable Care Act. That combination infuriated Republicans who spent months negotiating the drug pricing measures, and even prompted some grumbling from moderate Democrats eager to show some semblance of bipartisanship on a top health care priority. “I’m not very happy at all,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), whose bill limiting generic drugmakers’ ability to block competitors was included in the package. “They know that we’re not going to be able to support this, and for them to put that in there I think is just poor policy.” (Cancryn and Owermohle, 5/16)

Before the bill passed, the House approved a long list of amendments, mostly by voice votes. The changes included everything from studies on health disparities and prescription drug prices to additional requirements for navigators, who help exchange enrollees understand their options. One amendment would prevent the Department of Health and Human Services from banning the practice of “silver-loading,” which states adopted to blunt the effect of lost cost-sharing subsidies, while another would block HHS from terminating coverage for exchange enrollees who were automatically enrolled. (McIntire and Siddons, 5/16)

President Trump, who has made lowering drug prices a key priority, said he supports the drug pricing provisions but would veto the ObamaCare legislation if it ever passed the Senate. The drug pricing bills included the long-stalled Creates Act, as well as one that would crack down on brand-name drug companies paying generic companies to delay introducing their competing drugs — a practice called “pay-for-delay.” (Weixel, 5/16)

House Democrats and Republicans have united behind the goal of curbing maternal mortality and are likely to pass legislation this year intended to reduce the rate in the United States. Maternal-related deaths claim about 700 lives per year, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating three-fifths of those deaths may be preventable. (Raman, 5/16)

Despite the rave reviews, CBD is giving Washington a major headache. The Food and Drug Administration has different rules for regulating medicines and dietary supplements like vitamins — and it isn’t perfectly clear yet which category CBD, or cannabidiol, an extract of cannabis used as a home remedy for everything from anxiety to back pain, falls into. Congress, too, has struggled. Lawmakers passed a bill last year that officially legalized hemp, the plant from which CBD is extracted, but left the FDA will little guidance on how to regulate CBD. (Florko, 5/17)