Phar­ma faces rip­ple ef­fects from fed­er­al court's cut­ting of pre­ven­tive care

As the phar­ma in­dus­try fi­nal­ly re­cov­ers from de­lays in pre­ven­tive care, screen­ings and di­ag­noses caused by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, a Texas court rul­ing that nul­li­fies some Af­ford­able Care Act pre­ven­tion cov­er­age may reim­pose hur­dles.

US Dis­trict Judge Reed O’Con­nor — who pre­vi­ous­ly ruled in 2018 that the en­tire ACA was “un­con­sti­tu­tion­al” in a case that was even­tu­al­ly over­turned by the Supreme Court — hand­ed down a de­ci­sion last week that re­moves re­quired in­sur­ance cov­er­age for some pre­ven­tive care in a lim­it­ed way. O’Con­nor specif­i­cal­ly void­ed cov­er­age for rec­om­men­da­tions by the US Pre­ven­tive Task Force, al­though not those for vac­cines by the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Im­mu­niza­tion Prac­tices (ACIP) or women’s health­care, in­clud­ing con­tra­cep­tion by Health Re­sources and Ser­vices Ad­min­is­tra­tion (HRSA).

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