With Oz, Kennedy Nominations, Uncertainty Abounds for Health Insurers

  • Nov 22, 2024

    Now that President-elect Donald Trump has revealed his picks for two top health officials — Mehmet Oz, M.D., as CMS administrator and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary — the multibillion-dollar industries regulated by those agencies are scrambling to wrap their heads around what policy changes could result from Oz and Kennedy’s wellness-focused, antiestablishment views.  

    So far, the consensus appears to be that Medicare Advantage plans could face a much friendlier regulatory environment under Oz, who in the past has voiced support for a “Medicare Advantage for All” system. But Oz’s views on the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid are tougher to pin down, and Kennedy’s stance on the managed care industry is even fuzzier, since he is perhaps best known for his vaccine skepticism. 

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  • Leslie Small

    Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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