Friday, July 30, 2021 This Week’s Dose Senate proceeds with $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework. House passed minibus appropriations bill with $253 billion for Health and Human Services. President Biden announces new vaccine policies for federal employees. Congress Senate Moved Forward on Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. After several weeks of negotiation, Senators on Wednesday approved, by a vote of 67-32, a key procedural motion to begin debate on the bipartisan physical infrastructure package. The package does not have a healthcare focus, but the White House published a high-level fact sheet and summary indicating that it includes a $55 billion investment in clean drinking water (the largest in American history), as well as $65 billion to ensure every American has access to reliable high-speed internet—a key investment for telehealth proponents. The summary also highlights that the authors intend to offset some of the cost of the investments by delaying the Medicare Pharmacy Benefit Manager Part D rebate rule ($49 billion), extending the mandatory sequester ($8.7 billion), savings from reducing Medicare spending on discarded medications from large, single-use drug vials ($3 billion), and repurposing COVID-19 relief funds ($205 billion). While the relief funds are not reported to include money from the Provider Relief Fund, without a Congressional Budget Office score, the money available for health care providers could be tapped as a further offset.