BY PAUL KECKLEY
As DC readies for the Inaugural fest, the four-hour confirmation hearing for President-elect Trump’s nominee for HHS Secretary, Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and six term House of Representatives’ member from the Atlanta suburbs, was the focus yesterday. For healthcare industry watchers, the contentious hearing surfaced several themes likely to mark the new administration’s approach to its health policies.
Key takeaways from yesterday:
Party posturing: The orchestration of each party’s messaging was evident and in stark contrast. Democrats on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee sought to discredit the nominee as a tee-party ideolog whose views are out of touch with mainstream views about the health system. Republicans sought to reinforce “Dr. Price” pedigree as a clinician whose clinical and political experience equipped him well to lead the massive HHS machinery. Going in, the Democratic spin machine sought to paint Price’ as a corrupt politician who’d made $300,000 worth of stock trades in drug and device companies while legislating in their favor. The Republican PR machine sought to mute their attacks, noting the candidate’s trades had been cleared by the Office of Government Ethics.
Repeal and Replace: Democrats probed for specifics of the replacement for the Affordable Care Act, with particular attention to Price’ solution for the 20,000,000 newly insured thru the exchanges and Medicaid expansion. The candidate’s “Empowering Patients First” plan, introduced in 2015, served as the focus for his antagonists: it proposes the use of tax credits of $900-$3000 to permit individuals to buy private coverage, state-administered risk pools for those uninsurable, premium support for Medicare, health savings accounts with a one-time $1000 incentive and easing of restriction on insurers to allow them to sell cheaper policies. On the GOP side, the ACA was called a “disaster” due to insurance premium hikes and growing frustration of physicians. The nominee repeated “access to affordable coverage” and “giving patients more choices of plans and physicians” as his guiding principles while avoiding specifics about how President-elect Trump’s campaign promises to insure everyone and avoid Medicare cuts would be realized.
Insurance market reforms: Price stated that universal access to affordable insurance coverage is the aim and regulatory relief for insurers in the individual and small group insurance markets as keys. Dem’s probed the distinction between access and actual coverage, noting that last week’s Congressional Budget Office’ report estimated a spike in the numbers who will go without coverage in coming years if “replace” doesn’t achieve current levels of coverage. Frequently, Price criticized the ACA for limiting access to physicians by allowing insurers to use narrow networks to premium costs. He noted that one third of physicians refuse Medicaid coverage and one-eighth refuse Medicare coverage due to reimbursement rates and administrative complexities involved in participation, suggesting these were the direct result of the ACA.
Drug prices: The costs of drugs, and their well-publicized price hikes, drew barbs from Dems who noted the nominee’s plan was mute on drug prices. They asked specifically for Price to go on-record about allowing Medicare to contract directly with drug manufacturers instead of through private insurers and PBMs. The nominee said he viewed market forces as a solution, suggesting (inaccurately) that generics reflected the market’s constraint on drug prices.
Meaningful use: Only one committee member referenced HIT and meaningful use, Sen. Tim Cassidy (R-LA) a gastroenterologist who assailed the hassle and unnecessary costs associated with electronic health records. The nominee agreed, while conceding that “interoperability is the goal..and it’s good for patients”.
Medicaid: Questioning by Democratic panelists sought to discern the nominee’s views about its expansion and funding. Price offered innovation in the way Indiana’s plan was structured as a promising start whereby states could be granted more flexibility, and the long-term forecast for Medicaid expansion and funding was not addressed.
Value-based payment programs: Value-based programs were referenced three times in passing reference. Sen. Baldwin (D-WI) acknowledged the prevalence of ACOs as an innovation she hoped would continue, and two GOP panelists, both clinicians (Paul and Cassidy), questioned the value of demonstrations sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Price offered that innovation in the health system is needed and CMMI’s mandates were counterproductive. He noted that bundled payments per se were promising, but dictates from Medicare to physicians about the prostheses they could use discounted their value. (CMS does not dictate the prostheses).
Rural health: GOP committee members Murkowski (AK) and Enzi (WY) inquired about the nominee’s views about protection for rural hospitals, prevalent in their states. The nominee expressed understanding pledging that federal regulatory constraints could be eased to facilitate their survival.
And along the way, the panelists on each side opined on their favorite targets: Dems assailed the drug companies, lack of GOP attention to climate change as a health factor, and inconsistencies between the Trump, Ryan and Price plans. Republicans attacked the credibility of the CBO’s recent forecasts predicting costs would increase post-replace adding to the deficit, the need for medical malpractice as part of the replacement and the need for less regulation.
My take:
The confirmation hearing was a media event: it’s unlikely votes on either side changed and virtually certain that Congressman Price will be the next HHS Secretary due to the GOP’s majority on the committee (11-10) and control in the Senate (52-48). Notwithstanding several assertions requiring fact-checking, Dr. Price was poised and remained on message: ‘give patients more choices, let physicians practice without constraint, let markets work, and manage spending aggressively’.
The winners in the Price scheme for ACA replacement are the insurers who’ll see more flexibility in their plan designs, and physicians who’ll have an active supporter in the top job. Those likely to be challenged are hospitals, where commentary was scant in the hearing, states, who’ll shoulder more of the responsibility for the new normal, and individuals newly insured through the ACA who are anxious.
More to come. Stay tuned.
From a political perspective, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s trashing of ObamaCare (a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act or ACC) during CNN’s recent town hall meeting probably was quite effective. One would, of course, not expect a staunch political opponent of ObamaCare to render a “fair and balanced” picture of the program, to plagiarize a Fox News mantra. Not surprisingly, the Speaker dwelt solely on some serious 
