Insights | Meridian Research Group | Page 15

Medicare Extenders

An offset to the -2.8% cut to Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) payments for CY25 was not included in the House-passed continuing resolution (CR), which would fund the government for the remainder of FY25 (through September)). Rep. Murphy (R-NC) – a member of the GOP Doctors Caucus and a leader on this issue – has indicated that House...

Affordable Care Act (ACA) Exchanges

HHS has issued a proposed rule entitled “ACA Individual Health Insurance Market & Exchange Program Integrity,” which includes regulatory changes that would limit access to ACA individual market plans and eligibility for premium subsidies. As constructed, HHS projects the rule would decrease enrollment by 750k to 2.1m (total) between 2026 and 2029...

Nutrition Policy

HHS Secretary Kennedy has directed the FDA to consider rulemaking to eliminate the self-affirmed “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) pathway, which currently allows companies to determine the safety of food ingredients without notifying the agency or the public.

Financials, Mergers & Acquisitions

Capital One/Discover

Going into the end of last week, it appeared that the Capital One/Discover deal would be subject to the more permissive bank M&A regulatory framework that we expect the Trump administration to pursue in the coming years. In fact, the CFPB dropped its lawsuit against Capital One, which suggested the Trump administration was inclined to look at the...

Last week, the FDIC voted to overturn the bank merger guidelines issued last year under the Biden administration and to revert to the prior standards. Separately, Senate Republicans are reportedly planning to soon vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would terminate the OCC’s bank merger guidelines, which were also finalized...

Tech / Media / Telecom

Rural Broadband (BEAD)

Secretary of Commerce Lutnick this week announced that he is undertaking a review of the BEAD program that is intended to eliminate requirements that have slowed distribution of the program's funds and that he will be shifting the priority of the program to be “technology neutral” and fund projects that deliver access at the “lowest cost.”...