Five CEOs from the health-insurance big dogs (UnitedHealth, WellPoint, etc.) are at the White House this morning to discuss — or more accurately, take flack — over the health overhaul’s issue de jour: rising insurance premiums.

The leadup to the meeting has been disorganized and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on or who is really going to take the CEOs to task. HHS pushed out a press release on Feb. 24 saying the meeting would be yesterday at the department’s HQ.

Then the meeting got moved up to today and relocated to the White House. Rumors are swirling that President Obama himself might sit down with the CEOs for a friendly chat.

The insurance honchos, including WellPoint’s Angela Braly, UnitedHealth’s Stephen Hemsley, Cigna’s David Cordani, Health Care Service Corp.’s Patricia Hemingway Hall and Aetna’s Ron Williams, are expected to keep pressing the point that rising premiums are due to underlying medical costs that are rising at an alarming clip. Execs and their trade group have said hospitals are asking them for 40% reimbursement increases and to pay for high-end biotech drugs that are running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What’s likely to come out of the confab? It’s an opportunity for the White House to push the health overhaul by continuing to stoke what it has seized on as a signature issue –- the 39% rate increase that WellPoint asked for in California’s individual market. But like last week’s bipartisan health summit, it’s likely to end up being little more than an exchange of talking points.

Update: Maybe this wasn’t a routine exchange of talking points, after all. The Health Blog talked to four of the five big dogs in attendance in the Roosevelt Room this morning and they all reported that the tone shifted from the politically charged rhetoric of recent weeks to something more constructive. Obama did make a cameo, to read a letter from a health-plan member in Ohio with a 40% premium increase, which sparked some constructive discussion. Wonders never cease.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Popularity: 3% [?]

Merck & Co. entered into a performance-based contract with a US insurer for Januvia (sitagliptin) and Janumet (sitagliptin/metformin), which will link discounts for the products to improvements in medication adherence and the reduction of blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes, health service company Cigna announced Thursday. Eric Elliott, the president of the pharmacy benefit management division of Cigna, stated that “Merck should be recognized as the first major pharmaceutical company to offer increased discounts on its oral anti-diabetic products, supporting…efforts to reduce A1C levels…regardless of what medication [patients] may be taking.”

[ad]

Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will increase discounts on its two products for the insurer if the A1C levels for patients taking any oral anti-diabetic medications show improvement at the end of the year. In addition, if Cigna’s claims data for patients taking Januvia and Janumet show that they are adhering to their physician-prescribed treatment regimen, discounts on the two drugs will increase further. Merck’s products will also benefit from preferred status on Cigna’s drug coverage lists.

Merck commented that it was “committed to finding new approaches to demonstrate the value of our products to patients, physicians and payers,” while Sethu Reddy, a regional director for scientific affairs for the company, said Merck “is confident in the value of both Januvia and Janumet.” Meanwhile, Elliott indicated that Cigna is negotiating similar contracts with other drugmakers. In response to news of the agreement, former chief pharmacy officer for WellPoint, Robert Seidman, remarked that “we’re going to see a growth in outcomes guarantees for pharmaceuticals, and it’s very healthy.”

Last week, sanofi-aventis and Procter & Gamble announced they signed a deal with another US health insurer, in which the companies agreed to reimburse the medical costs of non-spinal fractures in women taking osteoporosis drug Actonel (risedronate sodium).

Source: FirstWord

Popularity: 7% [?]