Sen. Bernie Sanders will have to find a new tactic, or bide his time, to get Democrats to rally for another drug pricing crusade.

How so? The Vermont independent tried to pressure President Joe Biden to produce a “comprehensive plan” to reduce drug prices by holding up Biden’s nominees to top health care jobs.

But Sanders ultimately relented – even though Biden never gave him a plan – and Sanders’ Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted today to approve Dr. Monica Bertagnolli’s nomination as the new director of the National Institutes of Health, Erin reports.

Even though Sanders voted no, a united Democratic front and five Republicans advanced her to a floor vote, where confirmation is all but certain.

Why did Sanders back down? Neither Biden nor Democrats in Congress rallied to his cause this year.

Democrats want to highlight for voters the Medicare drug price negotiations they achieved in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act – which aim to reduce the prices on 10 high-cost drugs starting in 2026, and more in later years – and not the shortcomings Sanders sees in Biden’s efforts to lower how much Americans pay for drugs.

What’s next? Democrats remain committed to doing more to lower drug prices but are waiting for the right time, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president at KFF, the health policy research group, pointing to the Inflation Reduction Act as a likely centerpiece of Democrats’ 2024 election campaigns.

“Democrats are all-in on efforts to lower drug prices,” he said. “But it’s a little messy to pair a debate about drug prices with the nomination of an NIH director.”

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Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Katherine Ellen Foley talks with POLITICO health care reporter Chelsea Cirruzzo, who caught up with new CDC Director Mandy Cohen to discuss her efforts to regain the public’s trust in the sometimes-beleaguered agency and her plans for the CDC’s future.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation could improve mental health care by offering providers incentives to use electronic health records, a bipartisan group of lawmakers says.

The group, led by Reps. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), is calling on the center’s director, Elizabeth Fowler, to pay behavioral health providers more for adopting the technology.

The ask: CMMI was authorized under the Affordable Care Act to design and test new health care service delivery models, a sort of test lab for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The opioid-fighting SUPPORT Act, passed in 2018, included a provision authorizing CMMI to test providing incentives for health IT adoption among behavioral health providers.

Yet, five years on, CMMI has still not started on the trial.

The lawmakers’ letter pushes CMMI to release a notice of funding opportunity and implement the SUPPORT Act-authorized model as soon as possible.

Why it matters: The use of EHRs by mental health and addiction treatment providers lags significantly behind that of other sectors of the medical field.

By one federal estimate, 49 percent of psychiatric hospitals have certified electronic records systems compared with 96 percent of general and surgical hospitals.

Advocates say the gap in EHR adoption impedes integration between physician and behavioral health care, with implications for care quality and costs.

Money talks: Part of the problem, the advocates say, is that past federal funding efforts to promote EHR adoption, including billions from the HITECH Act in 2009, left out behavioral health providers.

Matsui and Johnson, along with Sens. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), have also introduced legislation that would add $20 million in annual grant funding for adoption of EHRs in behavioral health. Several signatories of the letter are cosponsoring that bill.

Next stop: friendship.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is helping Duke University students strengthen their relationships today on the first stop of his “We Are Made to Connect” tour.

The nationwide tour at colleges throughout October and November is Murthy’s latest effort to stem what he calls a widespread national health problem: loneliness.

“Just like exercise and nutrition, our relationships with one another are fundamental components of our overall health and well-being,” Murthy said in a statement, noting that loneliness impacts young Americans at “surprisingly high rates.”

At Duke today, the surgeon general is holding a conversation with the college’s basketball coach and a religious history professor. He’s also asking students to join what he calls the 5-for-5 connection challenge: five actions to forge connection — like expressing gratitude, offering support or asking for help — for five days.

The exercise is meant to help the students build social connection into their daily lives.

Why it matters: The tour builds on advisory reports about loneliness, social isolation and youth mental health that Murthy issued in the spring, which spell out loneliness’ link to myriad health issues.

It’s a pervasive problem, Murthy notes, with about half of U.S. adults reporting experiencing loneliness and some of the highest rates among young people.

What’s next? Some tour dates are still being finalized, but Murthy’s next three stops are the University of Virginia (Oct. 26), the University of Washington (Nov. 3) and the University of Texas at Austin (Nov. 8).