EPIC Act Will Correct Dangerous Market Distortions Passed Under Biden

 by James Brighenti

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) gave the Health and Human Services Secretary the authority to “negotiate” the prices of prescription drugs for Medicare. This really means the Secretary has the power to determine the price that they believe is acceptable and impose a steep tax of up to 95% on companies who charge more. The IRA incurs shortages, cost increases, and a small molecule “pill penalty,” which disincentivizes the creation and sale of small molecule drugs. The Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures (EPIC) Act, led by Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.),  aims to fix the pill penalty the IRA created.

Small molecule drugs make up 86% of all U.S. prescriptions and are generally less expensive to manufacture in comparison to other types of drugs. In addition, the simple nature of these drugs allows them to cross the blood-brain barrier, making them essential in treating everyday ailments like allergies to more serious conditions and even some cancers. 

The IRA allows the HHS to impose price controls on small molecule drugs after 9 years and biologics (more complicated, large molecule drugs) after 13 years. This is what is known as the “pill penalty.”

While the IRA disincentivizes innovation across the board, the pill penalty amplifies these barriers for small molecule drugs. A study conducted by Hanke Zheng, Julie A. Patterson, and Johnathan D. Campbell found that after the IRA’s passage, the average number of post-approval industry-funded trials for small molecule drugs decreased by 47.3% and 32.9% for large molecule drugs. The nearly 50% decline in small molecule trials is not research and development naturally slowing down; instead, it is a market response to the shorter timeline before price controls kick in. The IRA pulls away resources from drugs that are vital for both everyday ailments and the treatment of major diseases.

Companies like Pfizer have already moved away from small molecule development due to how the IRA treats small molecules differently from large molecules. Because of this shift, the company’s mix of small molecule drugs in its cancer portfolio is expected to fall from 94% as of 2023 to 35% by 2030. Small molecule drugs are typically pills, while many large molecule drugs require infusion or injection. A shift away from small molecules means future treatments may skew toward options that are more invasive, expensive, and less convenient for patients, especially for those who already have trouble getting access to treatment.

The IRA’s price controls are not an economic benefit but instead are a market distortion. The continued development of both large and small molecule drugs is vital for the health of the American people. To plug the holes that the IRA has punched, ATR urges lawmakers to support the EPIC Act.

https://atr.org/the-epic-act-will-correct-dangerous-market-distortions-passed-under-biden/

Big, Beautiful Work Requirements

 by James Brighenti

The federal Medicaid program was designed to help pregnant women, the disabled, and children. But today, it has become overrun with able-bodied, unemployed adults. Although Medicaid programs are administered by state governments, they are funded by federal tax dollars. This translates to a $12,100 cost per beneficiary paid by the American taxpayer. Roughly 62% of the able-bodied adults on Medicaid are not working, volunteering, or getting an education. Astoundingly, a plurality (35.9%) of all Medicaid spending is on able-bodied adults. That means a significant portion of the $12,100 each taxpayer is paying is going towards people who could work, but choose not to. This problem will finally be addressed through work requirements.

A study conducted by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation calculated that Medicaid work requirements could increase family net income by $12,034 and reduce poverty for Americans by 1.6 million to 2.9 million. This calculation projects that if these work requirements are effectively implemented by states, then they will significantly reduce poverty by promoting economic growth and labor force participation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released an interim rule, in accordance with the Working Families Tax Cut of 2025, that clarifies the law’s requirement for certain adult Medicaid applicants and enrollees to meet an 80 hours per month work requirement through employment, education, work programs, or community service. The Cato Institute reports that this reform will reduce $325 billion in Medicaid spending, which allowed Congress to relieve the tax burden on everyday Americans.

The CMS rule contains necessary guardrails around who qualifies as “medically frail” and thus is exempt from these work requirements. Someone who is “medically frail” is anyone with a serious medical condition or disability that significantly impairs their ability to live or comply with the work requirements. On top of this new definition, states must require documentation when it is available to prove if someone is medically frail, starting January 1st, 2028. Through 2027, states may accept self-assessment when reliable data isn’t available.

Work requirements for certain federal aid programs already exist and have shown to work in incentivizing employment and economic growth. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requires a minimum of 20 to 35 hours per week, depending on family structure and age of the youngest child to receive benefits. Research from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies found that work requirements increased employment by 4.2 percentage points in the first 5 years. Another study done in Charlotte, North Carolina, found that enforcing work requirements for public housing residents for at least 15 hours per week resulted in the employment rate rising from 58% to 88%. This tangible evidence shows that work requirements are effective in increasing employment at both the local and national level.

Federal taxpayers spend more on Medicaid for able-bodied adults than they do for seniors, individuals with disabilities, and children. But work is plentiful, and an entry-level job would pay more than $15 an hour on average across the country. An able-bodied adult would only have to work 19 hours a week to lift themselves over the poverty line. Further, work requirements can also be met by receiving any kind of education, learning a trade, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. There is no reason an able-bodied adult without young children couldn’t meet these requirements. 

Food stamp work requirements have led to able-bodied adults leaving welfare to join the workforce in more than 1,000 industries and doubling their previous incomes within a year and tripling them within two. On top of this, the higher wages offset any lost welfare benefits. The able-bodied adults being pulled out of welfare programs due to work requirements start to contribute to the economy; this is a win for the American taxpayer and a win for those who pulled themselves out of a difficult situation.

Medicaid was designed as a bridge to temporarily assist those that genuinely need it. But it has been abused by able-bodied adults who are capable of employment. Work requirements not only work, but they also restore the original purpose of Medicaid. Work requirements also help relieve the taxpayer burden that Medicaid causes because, as of right now, a large portion of Medicaid money is going to able-bodied adults. The Working Families Tax Cut of 2025, along with the recent, strong CMS guidance, will deliver relief to American taxpayers, reduce poverty, and restore the intent of Medicaid.

https://atr.org/big-beautiful-work-requirements/

NJ 'Health Insurance' Law Shows Democrats' Tax-And-Spend Mindset

 by Chris Jacobs

When Democrats say something is about health care, it often isn’t about health care. That’s the lesson of a law the New Jersey Legislature recently enacted.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., claimed that the measure “asks any company with 50 or more employees on Medicaid … to cover their workers, which they should do anyway, or pay a fine.” But if she wanted to promote enrollment in private health coverage, she and her colleagues had better avenues to pursue than a blunt tax instrument. Sherrill should call the new measure for what it is: a cash grab to fund an ever-expanding welfare state.

Employer Assessment

The New Jersey measure, a version of which California is reportedly considering, imposes an annual fee (translation: tax) on employers with at least 50 employees receiving health coverage through Medicaid. Employers with 50-249 employees on Medicaid will pay $325 per year for each employee, and each dependent, on Medicaid; employers with 250-499 employees on Medicaid will pay $525 annually for each employee and each dependent; and employers with 500 or more employees on Medicaid will pay $725 per year for each employee and each dependent enrolled in Medicaid.

The bill exempts part-time and seasonal workers, as well as those with intellectual, developmental, and/or physical disabilities from being included in the assessment. The latter exemptions get at a key point that at least one progressive think tank made in opposition to the bill. While the measure ostensibly prohibits employers from using a beneficiary’s Medicaid status “as a basis for denying to the applicant or employee the opportunity to obtain or maintain employment,” such prohibitions may prove difficult to enforce in practice.

A Better Alternative

If Sherrill and the legislature want to keep beneficiaries off the Medicaid rolls — their purported objective in creating this tax — a law dating back to 1990 provides one way to do so. Specifically, Section 1906 of the Social Security Act gives states the authority to require potential Medicaid beneficiaries to obtain their benefits via premium assistance, provided that the alternative form of coverage is cost-effective.

Premium assistance refers to using Medicaid dollars to subsidize private coverage, often health insurance provided by employers. The concept is simple: rather than spending (for instance) $5,000 to fund direct coverage for an individual, Medicaid would instead spend a smaller amount (say, $2,000) subsidizing premiums, deductibles, and co-payments for someone’s employer-based plan.

It isn’t always that simple, of course. Even before Obamacare, only a plurality of low-income workers had an offer of employer-provided health coverage. And in some cases, subsidizing employer coverage may cost more than Medicaid.

Yet premium assistance programs — which would keep people in private coverage rather than on a government-run plan — are obscure, not well-advertised, and hardly used. Data I obtained several years ago from Louisiana indicated that fewer than 1,000 individuals enrolled in that state’s program, at a time when thousands of Louisianans each month were dropping private coverage to go on Medicaid. Louisiana’s sparse take-up likely reflected the fact that the state spent only $11,730 promoting the program over a two-plus year period, meaning that few people knew the program even existed, let alone how to enroll.

Dependence on Government

If Sherrill wanted to encourage better take-up of private health coverage, she could have promoted premium assistance options for low-income residents. She also could make clear that, when individuals have an offer of employer-sponsored coverage that is cost-effective for Medicaid to subsidize, the individual must receive their Medicaid benefits via premium assistance. In other words, New Jerseyans not just shouldn’t drop private coverage to enroll in “free” Medicaid — they won’t be permitted to do so.

Yet the text of the New Jersey bill made its object clear: “the purpose of raising revenue to defray State Medicaid costs.” Rather than promoting private health coverage, lawmakers want to make residents dependent on Medicaid — and force businesses to pay for the ever-growing welfare rolls.

The Wall Street Journal got it right when it noted that “the goal of today’s progressives is to make more people dependent on government, not to help them become self-sufficient.” Mikie Sherrill’s silence on premium assistance — a better way to deliver benefits to low-income individuals — proves it.

https://juniperresearchgroup.substack.com/p/new-jersey-law-shows-democrats-tax

Taco Bell Cyclospora outbreak investigation causes YUM 3.55% drop

 

• US health authorities (CDC and states) probing Cyclospora parasite outbreak linked to Taco Bell lettuce
• Taco Bell proactively removing certain ingredients as precaution amid growing cases
• Taco Bell is key growth driver for Yum Brands alongside KFC and Pizza Hut
• News broke July 14-15 2026 per Reuters Barron's and Yahoo Finance reports
• Shares fell sharply on July 15 as food safety scare weighed on investor sentiment
• No earnings involved Q2 report scheduled for late July

https://finviz.com/stock?t=YUM&p=d

GSK shelves camlipixant after mixed Ph3 chronic cough results, boosting TRVI premarket

 

GSK shelves camlipixant after mixed Ph3 chronic cough results, boosting TRVI premarket

• GSK reported CALM-1 met primary cough frequency reduction endpoint at week 12 (50mg BID) but CALM-2 missed at week 24; 25mg failed both; secondaries unmet.
• GSK decided not to advance camlipixant (P2X3 antagonist from $2B Bellus deal) further in refractory chronic cough (RCC), citing insufficient efficacy to transform care.
• TRVI's Haduvio (oral nalbuphine ER, distinct kappa-opioid agonist MOA) positioned as beneficiary, especially in IPF-related chronic cough where it has Phase 3 plans.
• Retail chatter and biotech investors piled into TRVI on the news, viewing GSK setback as expanding opportunity in high-unmet-need cough markets.
• ERS Cough Conference (July 15-17, London) ongoing with Trevi CEO/CDO attending; no new Trevi data announced today.
• TRVI shares gained ~8-11% in premarket July 17 after closing at $17.36 prior day, extending recent run to all-time highs.
• Analysts maintain bullish targets ($20-29 range) on TRVI's cash runway into 2030 post-2026 offering and advancing pipeline.

https://finviz.com/stock?t=TRVI&p=d

Iran army says commandos infiltrated Iraq, killing 8 Kurdish fighters

 

Iran’s army said its 65th Airborne Special Forces Brigade carried out 11 cross-border operations in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, killing eight mid-level commanders of what it described as separatist groups and destroying three bases.

The army said the operations were conducted with intelligence support from groups allied with Tehran. It provided no further details, and the claims could not be independently verified.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/liveblog/202607116587