Transparency is always a hot topic, and a recent tweet by Allan Coukell brought the issue to the forefront once again.
The tweet references a House of Representatives appropriations conference report that “encourages the Secretary to clarify that medical text books and journal article re-publications are considered as non-reportable transfers and permissible under the patient education exclusion as intended by Congress. The Committee believes these publications serve as direct patient education and should not be subject to reporting requirements of Section 1128G of the Social Security Act.”
The language included in the conference report passed the House Appropriations Committee in July. Following the passage in the House, the Senate passed its own bill as part of a minibus on August 23, 2018.
Now, House Republicans have named eight conferees to a House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the versions – Rodney Frelinghuysen, Hal Rogers, Robert Aderholt, Kay Granger, Ken Calvert, Tom Cole, Steve Womack, and Martha Roby.
The Senate appointed the following senators as conferees: Richard Shelby, Roy Blunt, Lindsey Graham, Jerry Moran, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Patrick Leahy.
A review of both versions of the legislation seems to show that while the House included the language in the Bill, it is not included in the Senate version. It will be interesting to watch this conference to see whether the language gets included in the final version sent to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.
The language is an interesting take on direct patient education but depending on which Representative (or Representatives) wanted the language included, it very well may make it into the final conference version that winds up on President Trump’s desk.