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The decision by the House Leadership to choose not to bring the American Health Care Act (AHCA) to a vote left industry analysts speculating both about the fate of “Obamacare,” and the prospects for narrower reforms. With bipartisan support to reduce prescription drug prices, it appears as though Democrats and Republicans are working on plans to fix drug prices. This tenth article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA updates our January 12, 2017, article on the pharmaceutical industry and addresses current efforts aimed at reducing drug prices in the U.S.

On March 20th, House Republicans rolled out a number of changes to their bill, the American HealthCare Act (AHCA), seeking to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law better known as Obamacare. Although the House Leadership ultimately chose not to bring the AHCA to a vote, this ninth article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA unpacks the Manager’s Amendment, and offers insights on what may still form the basis for health care legislation.

This is the seventh article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA. This week’s discussion focuses on the potential impact on healthcare technology.

Industry experts are predicting that a slow repeal of the ACA will have very little, if any, negative impact on healthcare technology. Healthcare technology grew at an unprecedented pace under the ACA, in part because the ACA contains provisions which provide healthcare technology with incentives to develop and implement new systems aimed at increasing efficiency. Despite the significant amount of uncertainty with a slow repeal of the ACA for many players in the healthcare industry, healthcare technology appears to be poised for continued growth through value-based care, telemedicine, and the increased need for interoperability.

This is the sixth article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA. This week’s discussion focuses on the potential impact on post-acute care providers.

The term “post-acute care provider” encompasses a large and diverse group of healthcare providers that includes nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice agencies and assisted living communities. While each group has its own very unique industry characteristics, they all have at least one thing in common: none of them rely, to any great extent, on private insurance as a form of payment. This is because the vast majority of the patients served by post-acute care providers are older than 65 and, accordingly, are covered by Medicare. So, any repeal efforts relating to the private insurance exchanges that expanded healthcare coverage for more than 30 million Americans will have minimal impact on post-acute care providers. Instead, the key issue facing post-acute care providers relating to the slow repeal of the ACA is the threatened conversion of Medicaid into a block grant program.

This is the fifth article in our series on the effect of the “slow repeal” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This week’s article focuses on the potential impact of the slow repeal of the ACA on rural communities and healthcare.

Continued Fragile System Leads to Uncertainty or Closure Causing Economic Ripple Effect Throughout Rural America

There are nearly 5,000 short-term, acute care hospitals in the United States, half of which are in rural areas. About four in 10 rural hospitals are located in the South. More than half of rural hospitals are Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) (53.5%); a smaller share of rural hospitals are designated as Sole Community Hospitals (SCHs) (13%), Medicare Dependent Hospitals (MDHs) (8%), and Rural Referral Centers (RRCs) (11%). All of these designations provide enhanced or supplemental reimbursement under Medicare, using different formulas. Rural hospitals that do not qualify for these Medicare programs are reimbursed as standard Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS) hospitals.

Note: this guidance is now outdated. Please refer to this blog for current guidance.

On February 15, 2017, the IRS announced on its website that, based upon its review of the White House’s January 20, 2017, executive order, it would continue to accept returns filed by taxpayers that do not report whether the taxpayer has complied with the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Individual taxpayers are required to report on their returns whether they have health insurance coverage, qualify for an exemption to the coverage requirement, or are making a shared responsibility payment. Previously, the IRS had made changes to its software that processes tax returns so that returns filed without these sections completed would be automatically rejected and treated as not filed. Now, those returns will be treated as filed, and the missing information will be addressed by the IRS.

Even without potential changes to the Medicare program, MACRA poses a significant challenge for any clinician trying to determine the best strategy to maximize Medicare reimbursement – there are hundreds of pages of guidance in the proposed and final regulations to review and understand. But, at this point, clinicians attempting to assess MACRA must also deal with uncertainty about changes to the Medicare program. A significant source of uncertainty is the Trump administration’s stated intent to repeal the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” and also known as Obamacare), which is being implemented by current legislative efforts. Uncertainty about the ACA should be considered in developing a strategy to comply with MACRA.

This is the fourth article in our series on the effect of the “slow repeal” of the ACA. This week’s article starts a three-part discussion on the potential impact of the slow repeal of the ACA on the health insurance industry, with this week’s focus on the individual health insurance market.

On February 2, 2017, an important House Subcommittee – the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee – began addressing four bills that address portions of the ACA. Although three of the four bills were introduced in previous years, all four measures come at a time when lawmakers are grappling with the impact of “repeal and replace” – or just “repeal” – on the increasingly fragile individual health insurance markets.

This is the third article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA. This week’s discussion focuses on the potential impact of a slow repeal of the ACA on the pharmaceutical industry (Pharma).

Unlike many of the players detailed in our prior articles on the slow repeal of the ACA, Pharma has not made a lot of noise regarding a repeal of the ACA. In fact, Pharma and biotech stocks soared—generally 3 percent to 10 percent—on November 8, 2016, largely because the industry had been preparing for a Clinton victory. A recent quote attributed to one Pharma industry official—“I actually think the Republican Party is a far less certain bet for the pharmaceutical industry”—reflects some of the unease surrounding the change in administration, and the likely repeal of the ACA.

This is the second article in our series on the effect of a “slow repeal” of the ACA, which began January 3, 2017, when Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi introduced a budget resolution with instructions to the relevant Senate and House committees to develop a plan to repeal the ACA. The four committees that control healthcare policy have until January 27, 2017, to draft reconciliation bills, which will address the important details, likely including how long it will take to replace the ACA, and which parts of the ACA will be repealed through a budget reconciliation process. On January 4, 2017, the Senate promptly voted (51-48) to begin debate on the procedures to repeal the ACA.