Mark E. Lutes, Chair of the Firm’s Board of Directors and Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Modern Healthcare, in “Trump Win Tees Up Regulatory Rollbacks and Uncertainty,” by Michael McAuliff. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Former President Donald Trump's victory on Election Day promises to bring major disruption to how the federal government treats healthcare. Some of those changes will benefit companies and others won't, but an uncertain business landscape lies ahead no matter what. …
President-elect Trump, however, was vague on healthcare policies, offering "concepts of a plan" to improve the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and largely remaining quiet even on policies he pursued in his first term as president. Late in the race, his campaign seemed to defer health issues to former independent White House aspirant Robert Kennedy Jr., who mounted a "Make America Healthy Again" effort on behalf of Trump that included social media posts about banning fluoride in drinking water.
Still, analysts suggested the healthcare sector can reliably set some expectations, including that Trump will undo regulations enacted under Biden, particularly in areas important to Trump's base and related to the ACA. …
Transparency, PBMs and Medicare Advantage
For instance, bipartisan groups in Congress have been pursuing greater transparency across the health sector, ways to reduce prescription drug prices and tougher oversight of pharmacy benefit managers as they seek to trim hospital spending in Medicare, boost pay for physicians, and curb prior authorizations in Medicare Advantage.
Trump did not talk much about such issues in the campaign, but in his previous term he supported price transparency rules for hospitals, sought to ban PBMs from keeping drug rebates and proposed linking U.S. pharmaceutical prices to international benchmarks.
While some Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Dr. Roger Marshall (Kan.) have grown concerned about prior authorizations in Medicare Advantage, Trump has been supportive of the alternative to traditional Medicare, and analysts predicted he'd be a boon for them after the Biden administration imposed stricter oversight and tightened the purse strings.
"A Trump administration is likely to view the program as a fine example of privatizing government and to be friendlier to rate adjustments and less likely to attempt to dictate how the plans market to seniors," Mark Lutes, chair of the board at Epstein Becker Green, wrote in an email.
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Chair—Board of Directors / Member of the Firm
