Because the second Trump administration begins to take form, high well being officers should quickly allocate assets and choose coverage priorities. Whereas new administration officers will probably have a unique method to well being coverage than these previous them, there’s one space the place President Trump, the Biden administration, and lawmakers from each events have agreed in recent times: growing shopper selection and competitors within the healthcare market.
This dedication to pro-competition reforms was demonstrated within the first Trump administration, which took necessary steps to decrease prescription drug costs, draw on untapped authorities within the Inexpensive Care Act to advertise worth transparency, and shield customers from some unfair billing practices. President Trump’s first time period additionally introduced agency antitrust enforcement, because the FTC challenged a number of vital well being care mergers. In early 2024, the outgoing Biden administration continued this necessary work and promoted additional motion by way of the appointment of the Chief Competitors Officer throughout the Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS). Complementary parallel appointments had been additionally made for well being care counsels and process forces on the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) and the Antitrust Division throughout the Division of Justice (DOJ-ATR). If President Trump goals to supply tangible advantages for employees and customers struggling to afford wanted well being care, then his second administration ought to keep these competition-focused positions and supply them higher assets to additional enhance pro-competition insurance policies.
Why Competitors Coverage Is and Ought to Stay a Bipartisan Precedence
Well being care prices in the US have lengthy involved policymakers and constituents alike. With well being care prices accounting for roughly 17 p.c ($4.5 billion) of complete gross home product, and with the typical household premium for an employer group well being plan costing $25,572 a 12 months, U.S. per capita well being care spending far exceeds that of comparably developed nations. Repeatedly, researchers have demonstrated the reason for this excessive spending: excessive well being care supplier and drug costs, pushed in giant diploma by elevated vertical and horizontal consolidation and different anti-competitive enterprise practices. People don’t use extra medical companies than do individuals in different nations, they merely pay much more for companies.
In makes an attempt to decrease well being care prices and improve shopper selection, policymakers on each side of the aisle have lengthy supported varied pro-competition reforms. Along with value containment alternatives, competitors may also enhance effectivity, as organizations should optimize their operations with a purpose to keep forward of rivals. Moreover, competitors can incentivize innovation and enhance high quality, as rivals jockey to create higher worth companies and items for his or her prospects. Competitors may additionally enhance entry to well being care companies, as stakeholders enter new markets and provide extra companies to draw further customers. All of those aggressive outcomes – decrease prices, elevated shopper selection, improved effectivity, higher innovation, and expanded entry – align with the well being care agenda of President Trump’s first time period.
The Chief Competitors Officer Has Laid a Basis for Professional-Competitors Reform
The Chief Competitors Officer’s mandate is to determine, coordinate, and elevate alternatives inside HHS and throughout businesses to advertise competitors in well being care markets—in different phrases, to make well being care a “whole lot for the American individuals.”
Since their appointment in January of 2024, the Chief Competitors Officer and the HHS competitors workforce has gathered info and established cross-agency strains of communication to help future pro-competition coverage reforms, oversight, and enforcement. To raised perceive present limitations to competitors and anticompetitive conduct within the well being care market, HHS and the FTC issued a request for info (RFI) in February 2024 on group buying organizations (GPOs) and drug wholesalers. These businesses, together with DOJ-ATR, then launched a joint RFI on well being care consolidation in March. These RFIs obtained immense public participation, with hundreds of particular person and group stakeholders submitting feedback. (These feedback can be found to the general public: feedback on GPO RFI and feedback on consolidation RFI).
The well being care competitors tri-agencies – HHS, DOJ-ATR, and FTC – additionally solicited complaints and recommendations on well being care competitors and equity by way of a brand new portal, out there at HealthyCompetition.gov. The portal provides customers examples to assist determine anticompetitive conduct, together with contract phrases that block worth transparency or limit competitors, completely different types of price-fixing, and collusive conduct amongst purported rivals.
Along with these public info assortment efforts, the HHS Competitors Officer has taken crucial steps to determine knowledge sharing agreements and processes between the three businesses to facilitate efficient enforcement of antitrust legal guidelines within the well being care market. Past inside info sharing and pro-competition work, the HHS competitors workforce additionally helps the schooling of employers, customers, and different stakeholders, and might weigh in on coverage improvement throughout the company to make sure aggressive results are thought-about.
By Leveraging the HHS Competitors Officer and Fostering Collaboration Throughout Companies, the Trump Administration Might Scale back Well being Care Prices and Empower Shoppers
The muse for pro-competition reform has been laid, and the incoming administration can and will leverage this basis. The Trump administration ought to proceed to function and fund the HHS Competitors Officer, in addition to the well being care leads inside DOJ-ATR and FTC, to deploy the collected info and translate this data into evidence-based coverage reforms and enforcement actions to decrease costs for customers.
To additional spur pro-competition reform within the industrial well being care market and profit thousands and thousands of employees and their households nationwide, the administration might additionally help collaboration with the Division of Labor (DOL). With oversight authority over the well being care purchasers for People with employer-sponsored insurance coverage, greater than half of the US inhabitants, DOL is well-positioned to research limitations employers and employees face in well being care markets. DOL might additionally assist educate employers about the best way to be higher customers (according to their fiduciary duties), in addition to educate employers about the place to file suggestions and complaints once they encounter anticompetitive conduct or lack selection as a result of consolidation.
A continued dedication to the HHS Competitors Officer and comparable engagement throughout different businesses would align with President Trump’s earlier coverage agenda and will effectuate Republicans’ long-standing goal to decrease well being care prices and improve decisions for well being care customers.
