Insights | Meridian Research Group | Page 31

Tech / Media / Telecom

Rural Broadband (BEAD)

Last Friday, the Commerce Department/NTIA announced a new process for determining how the $42.5b in funding from the BEAD rural broadband program will be distributed. The new rubric for distributing funds eliminates the Biden administration’s emphasis on fiber, as well as various other requirements (e.g., labor, availability of a low-cost plan,...

Pharmacy Benefit Managers

In recent weeks, CVS Health, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) – the trade association representing PBMs – have filed separate federal lawsuits seeking to block implementation of a first-of-its-kind Arkansas law (Act 624) that prohibits PBMs from owning or operating pharmacies in the state.

Medicare/Medicaid

As the Senate makes edits to the House-passed reconciliation bill, two key threads of activity are emerging. First, as discussed in our recent comments regarding the broader reconciliation landscape, there are clear indications that the primary areas of concern amongst Senate Republicans regarding the House’s Medicaid proposals revolve around...

Energy, Financials, Healthcare, Macro, Tech / Media / Telecom

Senate Republican negotiations on changes to the House-passed reconciliation bill are intensifying. It appears that changes under consideration in the Senate increase the deficit by ~$600-700b beyond the House-passed bill’s $2.4t deficit impact, though there is consideration of adding provisions to try to close that gap. House conservatives are...

Tech / Media / Telecom

Content Moderation

The comment period has closed for the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) inquiry into “Technology Platform Censorship.”

Tech / Media / Telecom

Antitrust (Google)

The U.S. District Court for D.C. held closing arguments in the remedies phase of the DOJ’s search antitrust lawsuit against Google.