WHITE HOUSE:

The White House focused this week on foreign trade agreements with Japan & Indonesia, accelerating permitting to build new data centers, working to eliminate biases in AI models and promoting the “export” of American AI (both related to the AI Action Plan linked below). 2 items of indirect interest for us:

• • The White House released a new “AI Action Plan” (PDF) that lays out the Administration’s priorities for AI regulation. While comprehensive, it gives a tremendous amount of leeway to tech companies to design the policies that will govern the usage and rollout of AI.

• • The President signed an Executive Order that is designed to make it easier for cities to move homeless individuals off the street and into long-term institutional facilities that can help with treatment. Especially if you deal with this type of population, there may be opportunities to partner with local municipalities.

CONGRESS:

As Congressional focus shifted to federal government funding questions, Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home for the summer rather than face a series of politically charged questionsrelated to the ongoing Epstein saga. In addition to frustrating the Speaker, the unscheduled off-days are also costly with few legislative days left in the Congressional calendar. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Majority Leader Thune is planning on keeping folks aroundthrough the weekend to get the President’s nominees confirmed, leaving several Senators grumbling about having to work overtime. On a practical level, all the political machinations mean Congress is facing an ever-shrinking calendar to actually figure out how to fund the government come end of September. For now, expect a relatively quiet few weeks before things heat up again in September. Elsewhere in DC:

• • Congressman Greg Murphy (R – NC), one of Medicare Advantage’s most vocal critics in Congress, introduced a bipartisan bill to mandate parity in payments between traditional Medicare and MA. It also would require prompt payments on the part of MA plans. A fact sheet on the bill is here (PDF), while the bill language is here (PDF). There’s obviously a very long way to go before something like this becomes law, but it’s good to see these ideas circulating on the Hill.

• • It’s become increasingly clear that even Republicans are thinking about how to reform the MA program. At this past week’s Ways & Means Committee hearing on MA, Republicans were asking some tough questions for the representatives of the MA program, including their prior authorization practices as it related to SNF care. Healthcare Dive has a good summary of the nearly 4 hour hearing.

• • AARP finally jumped into the MA fray, sending a letter(PDF) in support of Senator Bill Cassidy’s No Upcoding Act, which looks to control the rampant upcoding costs in MA.

• • Unlike his first term, the President is stepping in early to try to help the GOP avoid primary battles and support politically stronger candidates.

• • Texas’ push to redistrict is setting off a redistricting chain reaction and causing angst for sitting lawmakers.

• • Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers is not running for a third term, opening up a competitive race.

AGENCIES:

It was a quiet official week for the agencies, but several interesting news reports related to the agencies:

• • Buried in last week’s CMS release of the physician fee payment proposed payment rule was a significant change to how Medicare prices medical services. Historically, rates are set by an industry advisory group run by the AMA. Under the rule, CMS would start to take a more active role in setting prices.

• • DOGE built an AI tool to help federal agencies identifies regulations that can be eliminated.

• • Following a reduction in the workforce, CMMI (the division of CMS responsible for new payment models) is looking to staff up with a focus on disease prevention.

• • CMS is planning on a new healthcare data sharing effort, to be announced, later this week.

FROM THE NOTEBOOK:

• • KFF did a deep dive on the new $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund in the One Big Beautiful Bill, even as several Democratic Senators want more answers on how it’s going to be implemented.

• • Humana announced another voluntary commitment to reduce prior authorization requirements and speed up approvals. At the same time, they refiled a lawsuit challenging their CMS star ratings.

• • UnitedHealth finally acknowledged the DOJ investigation into their MA billing practices.

• • China is planning to offer subsidies directly to their seniors to help them access elder care services.

• • In the latest example of a state proactively using AI, New Jersey is using AI to better identify children that are eligible for state benefits