What’s Next in Federal Healthcare Policy? Two Industry Observers Offer Predictions

Two healthcare attorneys following current developments on Capitol Hill share their perspectives on the current moment in healthcare policy

On Monday, March 13, Healthcare Informatics Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland interviewed two healthcare industry observers regarding current developments in federal healthcare policy. Hagland interviewed Jeremy Miller and Miranda Franco just hours before the news broke of the “scoring” of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the healthcare legislation introduced by Republican leaders of the House of Representatives on March 6, to replace elements of the health insurance provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed by Congress and signed into law in March2010 by President Barack Obama. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced late Monday afternoon that, while it anticipated that the AHCA could reduce the federal budget deficit by $337 billion over 10 years, it would also lead to the loss of health insurance coverage of 24 million Americans over that same period of time.

Jeremy MillerMiller is managing partner in the Miller Health Law Group, a Los Angeles law firm with eight attorneys, all of whom specialize in healthcare law. Franco is senior public affairs advisor at Holland & Knight, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm heavily involved in advocacy issues in healthcare and other areas. Franco does advocacy work on behalf of the Cooperative of American Physicians, Inc. (CAP), a California-based provider of medical professional liability protection and other services, while Miller is involved with CAP in an educational role.

In separate interviews, Miller and Franco answered questions from Hagland around a number of federal healthcare policy topics—the current activity in the U.S. Congress around the American Health Care Act (ACHA), the Republicans’ plan to replace some of the health insurance aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA); potential modifications to regulations under MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015), including to the MIPS (Merit-based Incentive Payment Program); and potential federal healthcare policy changes coming out of the Department of Health and Human Services, under the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, a former Republican congressman from Georgia...