After the landslide victory by republicans in congress, the house and many governor races, I was really interested to think about how this could impact healthcare and healthcare IT. Luckily, the really smart publishing company (ok, they’re not a publisher, but they publish really great content), The Advisory Board Company, has an article that talks about what the election outcome means for healthcare.
Here are their 5 key takeaways:
- Republicans face uphill battle to make changes to the ACA
- Reconciliation gives Senate opportunity to impact health care spending
- Congress will take up important health care policies beyond the ACA
- Republican victories in key governor races may slow Medicaid expansion
- Health care will remain a focus area at state and federal levels
The first point is the one that many people are talking about. Without the Presidency, I’m not sure that the republicans can do much to change ACA. They might make some of the programs miserable or somehow pull funding from pieces of the ACA, but with the President still in office they won’t be able to do much.
The biggest thing they’ll have to deal with very soon is the next SGR fix (or whatever they do to deal with SGR). The SGR Fix or patch if you prefer expires in March. The battle between Congress and the White House is going to be brutal. I see the same theater that we saw play out last year happening again. They’ll wait until the final hour and then pass a patch that will get us by another year with very little change. I do wonder if they’ll attach another ICD-10 delay to the bill like they did in 2014.
I still think that healthcare IT in general is pretty bipartisan. There are a few in Congress that have made overtures about the HITECH act and meaningful use being a waste of money. I’m sure we’ll see some similar tunes again, but I think it’s unlikely to really change anything when it comes to healthcare IT and EHR.
Those are a few thoughts on how the election results will impact healthcare. What do you think? Will these election results impact anything else in healthcare?
Much will also depend on who takes over the relevant committees in the House and Senate.
For example, in the House Republican rules put a six year term limit on committee chairs. In the Senate, retirements and the desire to boost new members also causes changes.