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President Joe Biden mostly painted in broad strokes in his State of the Union Address Thursday when it came to healthcare, touting a raft of healthcare accomplishments and proposals aimed at lowering costs for patients but perhaps raising costs for companies. He also pointed to some new proposals, including expanding the number of drugs that can be negotiated by Medicare to 50 a year, extending a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs to all Americans, and launching a $12 billion women's healthcare initiative. (McAuliff, 3/7)

Often, a president’s State of the Union address is a staid affair, with platitudes and calls for bipartisanship and unity. But President Biden blasted the pharmaceutical industry with its unflattering moniker, “Big Pharma,” not once, but three times Thursday night, only the second time ever that sobriquet has been used in such a setting, after Biden’s address last year. (Wilkerson, 3/7)

If you’re a drug company executive, you probably feel like you got up on the wrong side of bed. On Thursday night, President Biden proposed expanding one of his most popular policies: the Medicare price negotiation process that was put in place as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. “Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere else,” Biden said. “It’s wrong and I’m ending it.” (Herper, 3/8)

�Թϲ�����' 'What The Health?' Podcast: The State Of The Union Is ... Busy

At last, Congress is getting half of its annual spending bills across the finish line, albeit five months after the start of the fiscal year. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address, an over-the-counter birth control pill is (finally) available, and controversy erupts over new public health guidelines for covid-19 isolation. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join �Թϲ�����’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. (3/7)

Pharma industry giants including Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Novo Nordisk deployed a half-dozen lawyers to a courtroom here Thursday in a bid to dismantle Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program, just hours before President Biden is set to glorify it in his State of the Union. (Cohrs, 3/7)