Conference Presentation, Fireside Chat
The Road Ahead: Reflections and Insights to Improve Health for All | Future of Health Summit 2023
- A global pandemic agreement is expected to be struck by 2023 and finalized by the following year to ensure collective response capabilities, though success faces uncertainty due to the potential difficulty of securing U.S. Senate treaty ratification.
- The Inflation Reduction Act is anticipated to lower costs for Americans by maintaining the $35 monthly insulin cap for Medicare beneficiaries and ensuring zero out-of-pocket expenses for shingles vaccines, while requiring drug companies selling in Medicare and Medicaid to accept Secretary-set prices or face a 1,900% penalty and program exclusion.
- Pharmaceutical innovation incentives are predicted to see a dramatic reduction, specifically regarding line extensions and new indications, which may delay drug launches in the U.S. relative to other countries.
- Under the current Inflation Reduction Act framework, there is a risk that Part D plans will tier newly price-fixed drugs to lower tiers, potentially increasing patient cost-sharing to 80% and raising out-of-pocket expenses for specific novel therapies.
- Mental health parity is not expected to become a reality until the funding model shifts from reliance on grants and cash pay to treating mental health on par with physical health care.
- The 988 suicide prevention hotline is expected to expand its services to include text and chat capabilities alongside voice calls to ensure crisis connectedness.
- Mental health is projected to become the next major wave of health reform in the United States.
- The transition of Operation Warp Speed to the Health Care Operations Response Center (HCOR) within HHS, which occurred in 2021, is expected to continue managing public health operations effectively.
- The federal government is expected to rely on states voluntarily providing data on COVID-19 hotspots following the expiration of national emergency powers that previously mandated reporting.
- The "equity by design" approach used during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign is expected to continue driving record numbers of insured Americans, particularly among Black and Latino populations.
- The U.S. is expected to need a dramatic change in the cycle times for high-quality clinical practice adoption to prevent zip codes from determining healthcare quality or lifespan.
- Democratizing access to clinical trials, similar to the approach taken for COVID-19 vaccines, is expected to be necessary to ensure equal access to care regardless of location.
- While the administration aims to negotiate drug prices, participation by manufacturers remains voluntary, with the consequence of non-participation being loss of access to the 65 million American Medicare market.