Wall Street Comes to Washington health care roundtable

The COVID-19 pandemic has left indelible marks on the U.S. health care system over the last year, stressing hospitals in some locales to the breaking point. At the same time, the pandemic has spurred innovations in care delivery, particularly telehealth. Accounting for nearly a fifth of the overall U.S. economy, health care is bigger business than ever as the nation works toward recovery. Federal health policies can have large impacts on financing and delivery, and understanding emerging health care market trends and their implications can provide critical context for policymakers.

On Friday, April 9, the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy hosted the 25^th Wall Street Comes to Washington Health Care Roundtable as a webinar. Designed to bridge the worlds of Wall Street and Washington health policy, an expert panel of equity analysts, moderated by Initiative Director Paul B. Ginsburg, discussed market trends shaping the health care system and the impact of federal policies on health care companies.

Topics included how the pandemic altered the health care landscape both in the near and longer term; the growing role of telehealth and nonphysician clinicians; hospital consolidation trends, especially cross-market mergers; the future of provider payment reform; health insurance trends across the commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid lines of business; whether the federal surprise billing legislation was a win for insurers or providers; Wall Street and industry views and expectations of policy changes under the Biden administration; and other issues.

Viewers submitted questions for panelists by emailing [email protected] or via Twitter with #WallStHealthPolicy.