Election Implications (Part 1): Angst, Uncertainty and an Urge for Calm from Maverick Health Policy’s Julie Barnes

Julie Barnes has made a career helping health plans, tech
vendors, investors and others in the healthcare space decipher
health policy. She’s a former Hill staffer who earned her law
degree and spent a decade in corporate law serving healthcare
clients before moving to policy think tanks, business consulting,
and founding Maverick Health Policy. At Maverick, she provides
strategic advice on federal health policy to private companies
and industry coalitions, with particular focus on health data and
value-based care.


With the U.S. presidential election less than two months away,
Julie is kicking off a series of Healthcare is Hard episodes that
will explore the implications of the shifting power structure in
Washington. Next year, there will be a new administration and a
new makeup of the U.S. Congress – that much is certain. How these
changes will impact health policy and healthcare investing in
public and private markets is a much bigger question. During the
next few episodes, both before and after votes are cast in
November, Keith Figlioli will shed light on these topics with an
expert panel of guests.


A few of the topics Keith and Julie discussed during the first
episode of this series include:



The alphabet soup of healthcare policy. One of the
things that surprises Julie’s clients the most is the myriad of
federal agencies that play a role overseeing healthcare – from
HHS and CMS, to the FDA, CDC, NIH, FTC, NIST and many others
beyond the big, well known organizations. With Healthcare
accounting for nearly one quarter of the federal budget, there
is a massive public sector infrastructure behind it, which is a
big reason why healthcare policy takes so much effort to
navigate. Julie offers advice for organizations looking to
better understand healthcare policy, and for the people driving
it. For example, she says the wonks, lawyers and lobbyists all
talk funny. She admits to being part of this group, and says
they need to reduce the lingo for the sake of those not so
intimately involved.


AI changing everything. When discussing the
modernization of the healthcare system, Julie talks about
artificial intelligence (AI) being the main focus right now.
She believes it has the potential to dramatically change
everything because of the far-reaching impact it could have on
areas ranging from workforce shortages to clinical decision
support, user experiences for providers and patients, and more.
She says healthcare AI policy can’t be written fast enough
because of the speed with which the technology is developing,
but there are many problems to navigate. One is that the public
sector lacks experts who fundamentally understand this new
technology, which will create challenges with ensuring that
regulations are thoughtful enough to create a level of trust
around AI without grinding innovation to a halt.


White House hysteria. While the country is fixated and
divided on an historical race for the Presidency and the
impacts of the outcome, Julie is quick to point out that
changes in healthcare policy will not be fast, and will not be
sweeping. There are broad brush policy changes you can expect
based on party philosophies, like Democrats being more
skeptical about the influence of private money than
Republicans. But major legislative changes require bipartisan
effort, no matter who controls the White House, Senate, and/or
House. But one major area where Julie thinks many people are
underestimating the potential for change is the impact of the
Supreme Court’s recent decision on the Chevron Doctrine. She
talks about how this will open the floodgates on a wave of
litigation.



To hear Julie and Keith discuss these topics and more, listen to
this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.