December 17, 2024
[DKNG, FLUT, CZR, MGM] Sports Betting in the Crosshairs?
We don’t believe today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Gambling” does little to move the needle on federal legislation, despite most senators being critical of the industry. In fact,…
December 17, 2024
Trump Tariff and Trade Conference Call Takeaways
Below we provide our key takeaways from a conference call we hosted last week with a former trade official in Trump’s first administration. A transcript of the call is available upon request. Our guest believes…
December 13, 2024
[PBMs, Hospitals, Docs] Healthcare Extenders: State of Play
While Republicans and Democrats are trying to hash out a healthcare extenders package to add to a short-term government funding measure that needs to be taken up and passed by next Friday, we ascribe just…
December 12, 2024
(GEO, CXW) DC Quick Takes: Cap Gains/Dividend Taxes, Reconciliation and Ukraine
We don’t see the top long-term 20% capital gains tax or the 20% divided tax rate coming down in the tax bill next year, despite President-elect Trump mentioning this policy goal in response to a…
December 11, 2024
[CVS, CI, UNH] PBMs: Proposed Ban on Pharmacy Ownership, New FTC Chair Nominee, Trump’s Comments, Healthcare Extenders, Oh My!
Key Takeaways: While we had expected pharmacy benefit managers [PBMs] to remain in the legislative / regulatory crosshairs during the lame duck and into the Trump administration, recent developments confirm that the anti-PBM sentiment is…
December 11, 2024
Trump’s Anti-Trust Team Taking Shape
President-elect Trump’s announcement last night that he intends to name current FTC commissioner Andrew Ferguson to chair the agency reinforces our long-held view that, in general, M&A / antitrust under Trump will be more market…
December 11, 2024
[EW, ABT] Tricuspid Coverage Expectations
With CMS due to publish its draft National Coverage Determinations (NCD) for EW’s Evoque transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement (TTVR) by Dec. 20, followed by ABT’s TriClip edge-to-edge repair (T-TEER) by Apr. 3, we view EW…
December 10, 2024
DXCM vs ABT in Updated ADA Guidelines
We view ABT as likely better positioned than DXCM following updated guidelines from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) that clinicians “consider” the use of continuous glucose monitors (CGM) in “adults with type 2 diabetes treated…
December 9, 2024
[WBA, CVS] SCOTUS Sides with Arkansas Law; For Now, Contract Pharmacies Have Upper Hand vs. Pharma
This morning, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) afforded a win to state laws protecting the use of contract retail, mail-order and specialty pharmacies (WBA, CVS, WMT, UNH, CI, RAD) that arehired by 340B hospitals and clinics…
December 6, 2024
[HUM, ALHC, UNH, CVS, ELV, AGL] Expectations for CY26 Medicare Advantage Advance Notice
KEY TAKEAWAYS: We expect the proposed YoY change in the CY26 benchmarks for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans is likely to be relatively flat, with a range between -1% and +1% that excludes coding trend, but…