Following Jeffrey Kindler’s surprise resignation as Pfizer’s president and chief executive, the top pharmaceutical association moved quickly to replace Kindler with a new board chairman Monday afternoon.

Christopher Viehbacher, chief executive officer of Sanofi-Aventis, was tapped to head the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s (PhRMA) board of directors, replacing Kindler after his resignation from the world’s largest drugmaker this weekend.

Kindler, 55, who had been Pfizer’s CEO since 2006, was chosen to lead the PhRMA board in March of this year. In a PhRMA statement announcing the leadership move, Viehbacher said he was dedicated to addressing chronic disease.

“As an industry, we will continue putting patients first by delivering innovative, difference-making medicines that address unmet medical needs,” Viehbacher said in a statement. “Given the increased prevalence and costs of chronic disease, our industry needs to work with other healthcare stakeholders to encourage the prevention and better management of chronic disease.”

Pfizer had already announced that Ian Read, head of global biopharmaceutical operations for the past four years, will succeed Kindler as president and CEO.

The Susan B. Anthony List, responding to Rep. Steve Driehaus’s defamation lawsuit against the anti-abortion group, said his vote for healthcare reform — and not the group’s messaging — cost him a seat in Congress.

Driehaus (D-Ohio), who lost his reelection bid last month, announced Friday that he was suing the group for knowingly misleading voters about his position on public funding for abortion. The SBA List asserted that the reform law provided for taxpayer funding of abortion.

“Counter to his claims, the voters of Ohio's First District are the ones that cost Steve Driehaus his livelihood,” SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Congressman Steve Driehaus' problem is not that the Susan B. Anthony List allegedly lied about his vote for taxpayer-funded abortion in the health care bill. It’s that he caved when it counted, took the wrong vote, and paid the price on Election Day.”

During the campaign, Driehaus had issued a complaint with Ohio’s election board against the SBA List to prevent the group from posting billboards that claimed the one-term congressman voted in favor of public abortion funding by supporting the reform law. However, the billboards never went up, and Driehaus dropped the complaint.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he will try to end debate Monday on a bill providing healthcare benefits and compensation to sick Ground Zero workers.

Reid said he will file cloture on the motion to proceed with the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which will provide $7.4 billion over the next 10 years to first responders to the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

The Senate would need just one Republican to vote for cloture to bring the bill to a final vote.

The Medicare payment advisory panel is warning that accountable care organizations (ACOs), boosted by the new healthcare reform law, might face public backlash similar to what managed care organizations experienced in the 1990s.

The reform law provides incentives to ACOs — groups of providers and hospitals that coordinate efficient and quality care to a certain set of Medicare patients.

However, prior history shows that patients felt forced into managed care by their employers without seeing any benefits from the change, and some doctors who opposed the organizations helped stoke patients’ fears, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) wrote in a letter to the Medicare chief last week.

Legislative changes may be necessary to provide incentives, such as reduced beneficiary cost sharing or providing a share of the savings, to help beneficiaries accept ACOs, MedPAC wrote. Further, Medicare should allow beneficiaries the choice to switch from an assigned primary care provider to another provider who is not in an ACO, it said.

Meanwhile, physician and hospital groups said the government needs to create explicit safe harbors from antitrust enforcement and anti-kickback laws. The American Medical Association asserted that current laws and guidelines favor hospital-based systems with employed physicians, as opposed to small, independent physician practices.

The Department of Justice told a House judiciary subcommittee last week that it intends to offer expedited guidance to ensure that providers can form ACOs compliant with antitrust laws.

Wisconsin’s top lawyer may bring a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal healthcare reform law, according to The Associated Press.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen told the AP he hasn’t decided whether Wisconsin will file a new lawsuit or join the Florida challenge filed by 20 states. He has about a month to decide, because he must wait until the new governor takes office on Jan. 3.

Last week, a federal judge rejected another challenge to the healthcare reform law, marking the second time the law’s mandate that people buy insurance has been ruled constitutional. Liberty University had challenged that the law violates the First Amendment by requiring people to buy insurance that cover abortions.

Oral arguments in the Florida case are scheduled for Dec. 16.

Congress will work quickly this week to try to pass a food-safety bill for a second time, after the version approved by the Senate was thrown out because of a technical error.
 
The Senate bill had passed 73-25. It creates fees, violating a constitutional requirement that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. This means opponents will have a second chance at holding it up before the lame-duck session expires.
 
Congress will also look to pay for a yearlong fix to the Medicare payment system after approving a monthlong patch earlier this week. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said they are committed to finding a yearlong solution to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, which determines Medicare payments to physicians. Without the projected $17 billion “doc fix,” physicians face a 25 percent reduction in payments starting Jan. 1.
 
Nursing home advocates are still hoping the Senate will repeal the delay of a Medicare payment system for nursing homes. The House already approved it.
 
Also, the Senate is under pressure to quickly pass legislation providing healthcare for the first responders at the scene of the 9/11 attacks in New York. The House passed the $7.4 billion bill, 268-160, in September.
 
House committee chairmanship elections are expected Tuesday. One of the most contentious races is for the gavel of the Energy and Commerce panel, which has jurisdiction over health policy. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the favorite; the current ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), needs a term-limit waiver. Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) are also running.
 
Off Capitol Hill, on Monday, the Center for American Progress will discuss the socioeconomic effects of the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition of Medicaid funding for most abortions. Panelists include the CEO of Black Women for Reproductive Justice and the director of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
 
On Thursday, the American Constitution Society will host a panel of law and bioethics experts to discuss whether the Constitution protects the right of a competent, terminally ill individual to choose assistance in dying.
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Influence Vaccination Week starts Monday, providing healthcare professionals an opportunity to promote flu vaccination before the typical winter spike in flu activity. Three strands of flu are expected this year, including last year’s dreaded H1N1 pandemic strain.

Sen. Roger Wicker's (R-Miss.) bill would allow state officials to challenge federal regulations before they go into effect.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) has vowed to block Michele Leonhart’s nomination unless the agency bends to his wishes.

The Texas health department chief shot down the Republican governor’s suggestion that it may cancel its Medicaid coverage, saying the state is “very dependent” on federal assistance for covering poor people, according to the Associated Press.

Gov. Rick Perry raised the possibility that Texas would opt out of Medicaid, which covers more than 3 million in his state, during a CNN interview last month when he claimed the new healthcare reform law would increase his state’s Medicaid obligation by $2.7 billion per year over the next decade.

However, Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs said that talk of Texas opting out of the federal program has been blown out of proportion.

“What's getting lost is the need to reinvent Medicaid, not getting out of Medicaid," he told the AP.

A new state health department report this week reported that Medicaid accounts for 15 percent of personal healthcare spending in Texas, pays for more than half of all births and helps two-thirds of nursing home residents, the AP said.