This week’s main healthcare item is the much-anticipated House Ways and Means Committee hearing with hospital system executives. The hearing follows a January 2026 Ways and Means Committee hearing with insurance executives, and numerous House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings with stakeholders across the health industry over the past months. This week’s Ways and Means hearing will include testimony from four health system chief executive officers and Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care. Discussion is likely to focus on what hospitals and health systems can do to increase affordability, including potential discussion of site neutrality, hospital tax-exempt status, the 340B program, and vertical integration. A focus on the needs of rural hospitals is also expected.
Last week, the Senate passed the budget resolution that lays out instructions for reconciliation 2.0, keeping that package away from healthcare and narrowly focused on funding US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies. As the package moves to the House this week, some conservative House members want Republicans to create a larger reconciliation package outside of DHS. In an effort to get members to support reconciliation 2.0, House Speaker Johnson (R-LA) is expected to release a reconciliation 3.0 framework as early as this week that will focus on policies outside of DHS that Republicans could advance later this year. That framework could include healthcare policies.
Speaker Johnson’s goal is to show conservative members that he is serious about doing another larger reconciliation package in hopes of gaining their support for the 2.0 package this week. Given the slim Republican margin in the House and the upcoming midterms, the fate of reconciliation 2.0 in the House is still uncertain. Amid this action-packed week, King Charles is visiting the United States to celebrate the 250th anniversary of US independence, with his first stop in Washington, DC. He will give a joint address to Congress on Tuesday, making him the second British monarch to address Congress. His visit could take up airtime in Washington, DC, as Republicans work to push forward reconciliation 2.0.
Also this week, the House Oversight Committee will mark up multiple program integrity bills focused on federal programs administered by states, such as Medicaid. The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee will hold a legislative hearing to discuss food regulation bills.
In the regulatory space, we continue to await the release of the final 2027 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for the marketplaces, which is still under Office of Management and Budget review. With the 2027 plan year beginning in just eight months, states and qualified health plans still do not know final policies or how to design their exchanges or offerings.
In this week’s Healthcare Preview, Debbie Curtis and Rodney Whitlock join Julia Grabo to discuss what their watching for as the House takes up reconciliation and hospital and health system CEOs testify in front of the House Ways and Means Committee.
