Healthcare

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called for a crackdown Thursday on aggressive and misleading advertisements used by the power mobility device (PMD) industry to market motorized wheelchairs and scooters to seniors.

Blumenthal said such tactics drive up Medicare costs.

“Aggressive advertisements directed at seniors, which intentionally misrepresent the devices’ risks versus benefits and the Medicare coverage criteria, need to be stopped,” Blumenthal said in a statement Thursday.

Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) led a bipartisan group of 40 senators Thursday calling for the Obama administration to release federal heating aid.

The senators sent a bipartisan letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging her to release Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funds as quickly as possible to help Americans struggling to pay their energy bills as winter approaches.

Sen. Ron Johnson says a decision would prevent people in the District from keeping their current doctors and health plans.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced Thursday that later this month he would tell the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the importance of curbing hydrocodone abuse.

Manchin accused lobbyists of killing his bill earlier this year that aimed to make the drug harder to abuse and said he would continue the fight with the FDA at a meeting on Oct. 29-30.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) promoted their legislation Tuesday, which would end the ban on in vitro fertilization (IVF) services at veterans’ hospitals.

The two lawmakers are meeting with veterans in their home state who have experienced reproductive injuries while deployed. Some veterans whom they are scheduled to talk with later Tuesday have had to pay high out-of-pocket costs in the private sector to start their own families, since the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would not cover the medical procedure.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) demanded stronger federal regulations for compounding pharmacies that manufacture drugs without a patient prescription on Monday.

Blumenthal sent a letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg after a fungal meningitis outbreak was linked to a contaminated steroid injection made by a Northeastern compounding center, which altered ingredients to create a new medication that doesn’t have to be approved by the FDA under current rules. 

President Obama signed several bills into law late Friday, including Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) bill to prevent abuse of government charge cards.

The Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act, which passed in the Senate by unanimous consent before senators left for the election recess, requires federal agencies to put new controls on government charge cards and enforce more stringent penalties for violations by federal employees.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) accused the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday of waste and inadequate oversight following reports that state grant money was used for Hollywood contracts to promote the healthcare reform law.

Grassley and Upton expressed concern in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over an unlimited budget and little accountability for federal dollars to help states establish healthcare exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) tried to unanimously pass a resolution of disapproval of the Obama administration decision to allow states to waive some welfare work requirements.

“Every member of this body ought to be concerned about it,” Hatch said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “If changes are going to be made to the welfare work requirement they should be made by Congress, not [Department of Health and Human Services] bureaucrats.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called on his colleagues to unanimously pass a resolution he and Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) introduced meant to block the Obama administration's controversial changes to welfare work requirements.

The administration's policy grants states waivers to test new approaches to boost employment among low-income families, according to the administration. But states would have to prove that the new methods work.