Telehealth, Mental Health Care Provisions Could Pass Congress in Lame Duck Session

With midterm elections over, the soon-to-end 117th Congress will turn its attention to the biannual lame-duck session, and D.C. insiders say that health care items like reforms to telehealth and behavioral health care policies could be on the agenda. Meanwhile, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will soon hold inter-caucus votes on leadership roles, including Speaker of the House chairs — and those polls could dictate what is possible in health care policy when the 118th Congress begins work. 

The lame-duck session is the final gathering of an outgoing Congress, a last hurrah for members who have been voted out or will retire. Such sessions revolve mainly around prosaic government funding bills, which must be passed in order to keep agencies running in the new year. They also offer a chance for urgent policy considerations to advance; additional COVID-19 funding and pandemic preparedness legislation could get a hearing during this year's lame duck, D.C. insiders tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT. A lame duck session will typically pass an omnibus spending bill, which D.C. wags joke is a "Christmas tree" — in many years, nearly every member gets to decorate the end-of-year package with their own pet amendment.