Panel 3: How Does the Election Impact Health Policy in the 119th Congress?

Speaker 1:
So welcome back everyone. It’s now my pleasure to welcome our next panel to the stage. How Does the Election Impact Health Policy in the 119th Congress? I’m excited to welcome Christopher Holt, Strategic Advisor at the Alliance for Health policy who will moderate this discussion. Chris provides policy in federal affairs direction in consulting on a variety of Alliance initiatives. He previously served as Vice President of Policy and Federal Affairs for the Alliance, overseeing the policy works team to ensure that programs are solution-focused, grounded in evidence and timely for our policy audience. Before joining the Alliance, Chris was director of healthcare policy for the American Action Forum served on Capitol Hill as health policy advisor to Senators Scott Brown and George Voinovich, Representatives Tim Murphy and Bob Inglis, and on the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Thank you so much, Chris.
Christopher Holt:
All right. Well, if our esteemed colleague can come out, I will introduce our panelists. So our panelists probably don’t need much of an introduction for all of you, but we can celebrate them a little bit. And so let me introduce first right next to me, Rodney Whitlock, vice President at McDermott. Yes, come on, a little bit of applause.
Speaker 3:
Thank you very much.
Christopher Holt:
Vice president at McDermott+ Consulting. Rodney has two decades of experience on Capitol Hill in the House and the Senate, particularly the Senate Finance Committee. And is also an adjunct faculty member at, let me get this correctly, the George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health, department of Health Policy and Management, and the Graduate School of Political Management’s, department of Legislative Affairs. So thank you, Rodney, for joining us. Got
Speaker 3:
Yeah, took you longer to say that than I pend been there.
Christopher Holt:
That’s probably true. And then also Debbie, Rodney’s partner at McDermott+ Consulting. Debbie’s also vice president at McDermott+ Consulting, also spent over two decades on Capitol Hill most recently, which is a while ago. But as chief of staff to Representative Pete Stark and a member of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. So please welcome our panelists.
Speaker 3:
Thank you.
Speaker 4:
Thank you.
Christopher Holt:
So these are two of my favorite people to just talk to about Congress and the Hill. And so we’re going to start though. I know this is a post-election symposium. The 118th still has some work left. And given the outcome and the shifts as we look at government funding ending December 20th, health extenders, maybe disaster relief, other things sitting out there, how do you all see this election impacting this lame duck?
Speaker 3:
So I’ll start, which is you’ve got a lot of people getting back today yesterday, and all of them are doing the same thing. What the hell just happened? And trying to figure out what that means and they’re working through it. I think if you look at where we are and the change moving forward, we’ve used this phrase over and over again, but it’s still right so we keep using it. What they need to get things done is an outbreak of cooperation that has not occurred in the health space this Congress. In December of last year, they had bills, they had things set up and they didn’t get it done and they kicked to March. And once again, they got the minimal done. And so here we are once again with an opportunity. We have the extenders and we know that we feel very strongly they’ll get moved up to some point between now and December 20. We would throw telehealth in as part of those extenders.
What we’re watching for is is there any conditions right now where we could see them holding hands and finally finishing their work? Getting it to the President’s desk all the hours, all the time. They put into so many legislative issues through this Congress yet to have the ultimate signature on the bill, is this the chance they get it? And Debbie, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 4:
I don’t feel like that’s exactly where this Congress is right now. It’s the waning days of the 118th. The Republicans are thinking to themselves, well, in a few short weeks we control the world. Why do we want to cut deals potentially with Democrats right now to get a bill done where we might have to give away some policies that we don’t want to give away. But even before you get to that kind of gamesmanship that happens between Dems and Republicans, you have just the reality that there have been two times this Congress where they’ve been prepared to do exactly this. There’s not a lot of new issues that are open in healthcare that weren’t open last December. And yet they kicked the can to March and now we’re in that exact same scenario. I feel like this Congress has a really good learned behavior.
And I just find it hard to believe that they’re going to do more than that. The one variable I would toss out there is if incoming President Trump were to say, “Look, actually a year long funding bill for ’25 is what I’d like to have because we’ve got a lot on our plate in the new Congress. I’m going to be sure I can get done extending the Trump tax cuts and immigration reform. And I don’t want us stuck having to deal with last year’s business. Please resolve the business of government for me.” I don’t see that happening. But if it did, it would change the scenario for the end of this year. But also look at the clock, we are sitting here, there are only five weeks that Congress is in session between now and December 20th. So if we don’t start seeing signs that there’re conversation’s happening, it becomes almost hard to believe that the pieces could be put together.
Christopher Holt:
Right. We’d really need to see some evidence this week even.
Speaker 4:
I think next week.
Speaker 3:
Next week, yeah.
Speaker 4:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
And again, they will settle into their reality a little bit more. And again, so much of it is about relationships. And you’re going to have people who are doing the job on the Republican side frantically trying to figure out, okay, can I be in this meeting before I go to Mar-a-Lago or after, to go beg for a job. Trying to see how much you guys thought that was a joke and how much you [inaudible 00:06:46]. Yeah, bet they are that they’re going to be, let me work on this bill so I can go into administration and then implement this bill. That’s going on, it’s just flatly is. And if we want to roll back the clock four years, we had close friends who were doing the same thing on the opposite side. That’s the way the game plays. And so that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re working towards something they might want to, but again, all the dance partners have to dance to the same song.
Christopher Holt:
All right. Well, so moving to the 119th Congress, we’ve got all new committee chairs in the Senate. We’re going to have some new chairs and new ranking members in the house, some shuffling in the house, new Senate leadership as of today. And so can you guys talk a little bit about, particularly in those key health policy positions how the shifting chairs in the committees and in leadership may or may not change the health policy dynamic going into the 119th?
Speaker 3:
All right, so let’s start here. And I’m sort of getting used to this dynamic, Debbie, after all this time of you always got to go first because… And I’m just naturally deferring to you and now I have to sit there and go, hold on, I’ll go first.
Speaker 4:
For now.
Speaker 3:
Okay. So let’s start with the Senate. As of the moment, there are still no signals yet that it’s anything other than Bill Cassidy at the help committee. I’ve said this on public podcasts, I can say it in this room. The man is buzzy the hummingbird. And I mean that flatteringly, he works and he’s in a million things and he’s all in doing stuff. And he’ll be doing that in the HELP committee and his perch over at finance. His relationship with the incoming president is not necessarily the strongest. And we’ll have to see how that plays out. On the finance committee side, you’ll see Mike Crapo take the gavel and it will be interesting to see what course he sets because I don’t think a lot of us look at it and say he ain’t Bill Cassidy. No. And so where does he go in terms of leading the committee and what direction? And so we’ll watch that. Do you want to talk about the-
Speaker 4:
Let’s do the Senate and then we’ll go to the house? Yeah, so on the finance committee it’ll be Ron Wyden who moves into the ranking position. And I don’t see him changing his behavior after all these years in Congress, but there will be I think five new members of the finance committee on the Democratic side. Even moving into the minority between retirements and losses, that’s how many new members. So that is a significant number of new people that can change on the Democrat’s perspective, what are their top issues? And if you want to look at, okay, who are those going to be? Everyone is like who’s going to be the new finance committee? I’d put Cory Booker at the top of the list because of the Menendez slot being vacated. And because that’s very close to New York and I do believe Schumer will want to have a close ally on the committee. So I think that looks observationally like almost a sure bet.
And then I would look at the Democrats who are up in ’26 because the finance committee is a very good place to sit when you’re running for reelection. And so I would look at those members as likely people, look at people like Lujan, maybe Ossoff, people of that nature. And then the HELP committee, I don’t think there’s any changes at all.
Speaker 3:
So flip to the House, Ways and Means will be pretty static inclusive of members. We do not anticipate more than single hands worth of members coming on. Energy and Commerce committee is where we’re going to see the largest change. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is retiring, Richard Hudson choosing not to run. And I just have to step back and ask you to think for a moment, you had your choice to say, “I’d like to have the Energy and Commerce Committee and chair it, or I would like to go back to NRCC and do that.” Which one did he say he’d prefer to do? Just think about that one for a bit.
Then it leads us to Brett Guthrie or Bob Latta. And I feel like we have a pretty significant healthcare bias because Guthrie has been chair of the subcommittee for a long time and Lata doesn’t play much in the space. So all of us who work that feel like, well, it’s got to be Guthrie obviously. I still lean that way and expect it to be Guthrie. And then it’s Griffith Bilirakis, maybe Buddy Carter taking over the subcommittee chair. But from that perspective, and I’ll say this across both finance, ways and means, energy and commerce, much less so HELP, who from the team leaves to go into the administration on the Republican side and how does that change things? Where do people come from? Because this is not me going way out on a limb here. It’s not like the Republican bench is exceedingly deep. If you have a master’s degree, you can be an LC on a Democratic senate office. If you spell healthy, you’re a health LA on committee on the Republican side. Darn, I was actually hoping that wasn’t a joke.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. So on the Ways and Means committee, Democrats, even though going into the minority will get a couple of new seats on that committee, there’s no leadership changes. Expectations are pretty obvious there because there’s two members who were forced off the last time when Democrats went into the minority. So I would expect Brendan Boyle and Stacey Plaskett to both come back onto the committee. And that’s the expectation there. On energy and commerce, Diane Daggett that’s the only name people have out there for taking over the health subcommittee. So she will be the next health subcommittee chair. I think we all know that on energy and commerce it is ruled pretty efficiently from the top. And so how much difference that makes remains to be seen. And there will be some new democratic members I think, maybe just bet only one or two if there are any on that committee.
Christopher Holt:
Rodney, I want to go back to one thing you said because you’ve said it twice. You’ve mentioned house members going into the administration. The President-elect has already picked two house members going to the administration. We’re just getting calls today that Republicans are 218. How many more members can go into the administration and make a speaker vote?
Speaker 3:
I think that both Johnson and his colleagues have said, “All right, you got your quota, you can stop now.” Whether or not he listens is another matter, but I also give them deference that they know what they’re doing enough to manage timing of certain departures and Senate managing confirmation. So again, and that anything they’re working on they’re not having to worry about getting everybody. So my tongue in cheek, Debbie’s working the stall trying to find the pony in there somewhere in this news, but I’m not seeing it as being a real problem.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. I think the real problem exists for house Republicans period, taking two votes down for a period of time. If President Trump really wants to pass a tax bill in 100 days, that is a whole heck of a lot of work. Personally, I do remember in the Obama administration that health reform was going to be done in 100 days and it was not. So you got to try for it. I’m not going to say that it’s not achievable, but you’re taking two Republican seats out there making the margin even tighter. And yes, I think in a world where you have the presidency, there’s a lot more discipline than in a world where you don’t. But I think no one really knows what this house Republican majority will do.
Speaker 3:
Totally fair. But what I want to keep saying over and over again, this ain’t 2017.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
I agree.
Speaker 3:
The last two times other than that that we’ve had a shift in administrations, 2009 to 2021, the incoming majority did a massive bill in a blink. 2017 was a clown car show and they couldn’t find their ass with two hands in a map. And the first run at the ACA repeal and replace was killed by Mark Meadows who would then go on to be the man’s chief of staff, not a joke. And so I’m going to give Republicans the benefit of learned behavior, never know which jokes are going to work. You really don’t. And Claire is paying me by the joke for this. Let’s be clear. So you guys are making me money, keep laughing at this show. So I’m going to give them the benefit of learned behavior and that they’ll look at each other and go, “Okay, the man’s a lame duck right now. History says we got two years, buckle up, put on your big boy pants and let’s pass some stuff.’
Christopher Holt:
So I was going to go to this later, but since we’ve kind of veered into this, the other thing that’s different and maybe you guys can talk about this, is just the makeup of Congress. So coming in 2017, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, he had a congress that was much less MAGA, much less Trumpy than this one. So does that dynamic change things at all?
Speaker 3:
But without question, 2017 everybody was like, “He won, really?” You want to act like you weren’t doing that.
Speaker 4:
I wasn’t. I was crying.
Speaker 3:
Yes. We did the same event this morning that we did eight years ago, which she kept it together. I did and I cried the whole time. So-
Christopher Holt:
Tears of joy?
Speaker 3:
Oh, suffering and sorrow. So difference, 2017 aside of the shock and not really having the bench and everybody really grasping, okay, we won, what the hell are we doing? You also particularly you still had that split on the Republican side where their attitude was, well, if it could become law, I got to vote against it. And Norman Ornstein has spoken volumes about that in rather fiery terms about Republicans who’ve behaved that way from 2010 on. Wait, it can become law, but I’m voting against it. I think, and y’all can come back and shoot me an email in February where we’re going, ha ha dumb. You can tell me I was wrong but right now my read is they might get the joke in their job, which is to pass things.
Speaker 4:
And I think I agree with everything that they’re more aligned now. Look at Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump they are side by side, 100% here. But in the dynamics of passing legislation, you’re going to have a house that’s going to pass extreme things and they’re going to go to a senate which if they have to reach a vote of 60, they’re going… And that’s a big [inaudible 00:18:28], if we can have that conversation separately. But then they’re going to have to be moderated and come back to the house. When those things come back to the house, there are people on the Republican side who aren’t keen on moderating their thoughts on things and vote no very easily. Now, yes, they’re going to have a president Trump if he agrees with what’s come back saying you need to do this. But I don’t think it’s a sure bet that they’re all going to line up if governing involves compromising and making changes to what they’ve already voted for. And so we will just see.
Speaker 3:
The number of assumptions in that-
Speaker 4:
There were a lot.
Speaker 3:
Were voluminous.
Speaker 4:
Yes.
Speaker 3:
Voluminous number of assumptions,
Speaker 4:
But there is no one here that can say what is going to happen. We are all assuming.
Speaker 3:
No, we absolutely can say what’s going to happen. We can just be wrong.
Speaker 4:
There you go. That’s true.
Christopher Holt:
Well, we’ve been bouncing around a bit, but before we completely leave the campaign, and Rodney, if you’ll want to let Debbie go first this time. In 2022, I don’t think there’s much question that abortion was a particularly salient issue for Democrats health policy in general. Talk about how that played out, I know there were cross currents here. So talk about how that played out in 2024.
Speaker 4:
Sure. I’ll give you my observation on it. My observation is that it is still a very key issue for many women voters. But what has happened is that the Trump campaign did a very good job saying, I gave it to the states and there was a lot of good activism at the states to get ballot initiatives. And so you could vote to protect your right to abortion or your daughter’s right, or whatever reason you were voting for that, you could vote for that and still vote for whoever you wanted to at the federal level because it would be protected in your state constitution. And so that bifurcation of things, and you look at it in Michigan, some of the other states where they had already voted to protect it. So was that as salient an issue at the presidential level when you have a candidate telling you, “No, that’s a state issue and if your state is spoken, you’re safe.” And I think Democrats misread that dynamic and went too hard on that particular issue without seeing the need to broaden that message beyond that.
Speaker 3:
We don’t know what the number is. You move votes and not a huge number, but bigger than 16 or 20 in three states, and you’re saying the exact opposite because she would’ve won. And then would you really have been saying it or you would’ve said it worked?
Speaker 4:
It would’ve depended. I think you would have to look at Michigan of what happened there because that’s a really clear example of where they had the protection put in place.
Speaker 3:
But now, Chris, you just said the word out loud, The real issue in this campaign, and we have not begun to get into the depth of the numbers in both the votes in the exit polls, but 49 of 50 states, Harris underperformed Biden in 20. Washington is the only one and it’s only by 0.3, something went on. And so if abortion was any way a salient issue, you’re just not looking at it that way.
Speaker 4:
Well, it wasn’t the most salient issue, obviously the most salient issue clearly appeared to be the economy. And that the interests of the economy and immigration playing in there as well are the issues that overrode abortion. And I think still that’s the case because there was a state approach where people… Because you had states voting for protecting abortion and for Trump,
Speaker 3:
One more just because I want to, Arizona was a swing state, Arizona is one of the seven. As of the moment, and I check every morning and make sure I can keep saying this out loud, as of the moment, the margin in Arizona for Trump was greater than the margin for Harris in, you sitting down? New Mexico, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire, something’s going on.
Christopher Holt:
Well, we’re not here to talk about political realignment.
Speaker 3:
We’re not going to talk about it.
Christopher Holt:
So we’re going to move on. But I guess one takeaway, it wasn’t just abortion, healthcare just wasn’t a significant issue in this election. And I think as we look at top priorities for the Trump administration coming into this Congress, it’s not at the top. So we think about issues like tax extensions where it could definitely come into play and maybe immigration, other things. How do you see healthcare playing out in the first part of this Congress? Is there healthcare moving? What do we see?
Speaker 3:
I don’t see it being part of first 100 days or the initial push, whatever it is. Healthcare I do not see playing a significant role in that. I just can’t make it work. I think it is then where they turn to and if particularly in the second half of a 2025, do they start looking at deficit reduction? Then we get into healthcare conversations. Clearly at some point the temporary enhanced tax credits do have to get back on the table, but we’ll see in what form and how that conversation goes.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. And I think the other area where it’s going to play I think more quickly potentially is if there are CRA, Congressional Review Act rolling back of regulations. Those are things that have to happen in a faster timeline if they want to do it. But Rodney and I have talked a lot about this, if there’s a regulation that saves money, no way. And they’re not going to do the CRA and give that money back to the administration, Congress can use that money. And so that’s where I think the tie-in to deficit reduction or potentially the tie-in to a tax bill if everything becomes rolled together, where they want to have some deficit reduction in a tax bill that isn’t paid for, wrap your head around that one. And do it that way because healthcare very easily gets glommed into using a technical legislative term there, any kind of a large tax bill.
Christopher Holt:
Yeah, and for pay-fors for other things. So we don’t see major policymaking in healthcare initially. Are there places that you think Congress will be active in health policy in the first year?
Speaker 3:
Tell me what happens in lame duck. Oh wait, you already asked that and we answered it badly. What’s left over from lame duck? What doesn’t get done? What is still something? And even on a bipartisan basis that could theoretically be in play, we will certainly watch that. Inside a deficit reduction certainly Medicaid is on the table, Medicare is on the table. I’m going to argue Medicare is on the table because I don’t think Medicare is… We will not touch Medicare, we’ll not touch Medicare beneficiaries. I don’t see people fighting over to death to say, “Hey, you said you wouldn’t touch Medicare and now you’re taking on site neutral.” “Really?” Really or Medicare advantage and upcoding. “Really, that’s too far?” The bridge is too far in Medicare, we’ll see about that. But those are the ones there and then it’s what is left over from lame duck.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. And definitely, we have to reach a point where even if we kick the can out on a CR where they’re going to look to do more. We have got PBMs. That is obviously something where there’s been a lot of agreement but they can’t get to yes. Then you’ve got prior authorization, and just to pick a particular issue within the MA sphere and that goes beyond. I do think there’s a lot of members of Congress who are interested in taking action there. So there are still telehealth. Extending the Medicare flexibilities for telehealth are only one of the many telehealth policies that go along with that.
So I do think you’ll see Congress moving and committees acting and legislation being put forward. A lot of it bipartisan in some of those areas. I’ve talked about the doc fix, physician pay is something that is getting a lot of attention in Medicare. And when you’ve got med packs saying they need to be updated, that really piques more interest from Congress. And so all of those things I think could be implied how they get wrapped into something. Again, we’ve been talking about all of them for a year and a half and they haven’t been wrapped into something, you start to wonder what’s going to be different next year that makes that be the case and whether it is.
Christopher Holt:
Debbie, you brought up two things a minute ago that I wanted to come back to. I’ll start with CRA, are there regs… I hear what you’re saying if there’s savings, maybe they want to wait. But are there regs that you would anticipate them trying to go after through CRA?
Speaker 4:
I wouldn’t. Okay, so we are still putting the list together. I’ll use one that just came out recently.
Christopher Holt:
We’ve got timing, right?
Speaker 4:
It’s on my mind. The Medicare preventive benefits contraceptive rate that just came out recently, you could see that being something they decided they wanted to do through CRA and get rid of through CRA if it gets finalized before the administration.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. And so there are a number that they definitely put in their work in April to make sure that they were outside the range. And so I think the CRA list may be is not that fulsome, but then that gets back to the question of what can be got rid of and savings be achieved by doing so. That list has got some big ones on it.
Christopher Holt:
Okay. And then, Debbie, the other thing that you brought up were the APTC’s. And it may that Rodney’s better to speak to this, but I think there’s sort of an assumption that they’re gone. But what does it look like in a Republican Congress, Republican president? Is there a path where the enhanced APTC’s continue?
Speaker 3:
There’s absolutely a path for the temporary enhanced APTC’s to continue, but what form? And let’s be frank, it’s going to be the first time Republicans will be in a position to affirmatively own a part of the ACA structure. I’m going to let that sink in for a moment because it’s true. Republicans have not been put in a position where they’re in charge. And you know what they can do? They can go, that’s the ACA. You can go back to original ACA because you passed the ACA and now it’s your ACA. And we’ll go back to letting you have your ACA. And you can say that your temporary version is now real ACA, but no it’s not. And back it goes. But is there a configuration of folks willing to work together on a bipartisan basis to come up with something that probably will not be the temporary version.
It may be some configuration that folks can live with and say, and particularly knocking the top out, you and I have gone round on this, which is someone at 600% of poverty and pick wherever you want in America, age 62 but hasn’t much income. We can come up with some recent friends who’ve retired and might give that name. But again, who are you fighting over for that to get a deal? But the conversation in this town is going to be 100% all or nothing. You are either doing it our way or you are evil. I am so ready for that to gear up. But it’s coming.
Speaker 4:
And here’s what I would say, you never win on the outside by saying, “We’d like to come to you with a compromise.” So it would be absolutely irresponsible for any advocate looking to extend the ACA enhanced tax credits to start thinking how to water it down right now. You’ve got to yell for what is needed. The other thing I think it’s really important for everyone to remember is these tax credits have made coverage affordable for people. They’ve particularly done so in red states that haven’t expanded Medicaid. And so those tend to have more Republican members of Congress as well. And when you are losing your health insurance because your member of Congress chose not to continue a law that is very meaningful to you, that can have real repercussions. This isn’t, in this instance 2014 before anyone had really begun benefiting from the ACA. People are enrolled, they have these policies. And health insurance is expensive even if you’re getting subsidized at these upper levels.
I spent eight years implementing the ACA locally in D.C. One of the most powerful things I heard was a couple in their 60s who was paying for coverage through DC Health Link. And they went through and showed how they were depleting their IRA because their premiums between the two of them were over $2,000 a month and they had saved for retirement, but that retirement money was going away because they had to use it now. So these are real costs for people and losing coverage is a big deal. And I think it’s absolutely realistic that we could continue them in some form. Rodney and I have talked about this a lot and the open-ended that anyone won’t spend more than eight and a half percent of their income is probably a bridge too far for a Republican controlled Congress. But the idea that this needs to be maintained for people to keep their coverage is a fight worth fighting for.
Christopher Holt:
Rodney, you and I talked about this previously, but it’s hard to take something away from people once it’s there. And you point out to the fact that predominantly red state’s benefiting. Rodney, I know you worked in the house, but you’re a senate guy and I worked in the house but I’m a senate guy.
Speaker 4:
I stayed true.
Christopher Holt:
I did start in the Senate, went back to the Senate. But one of the things that we’ve talked offline about this a little bit, the dynamic at play here, the Senate is a unique institution.
Speaker 3:
It is.
Christopher Holt:
And it’s an institution uniquely designed to frustrate someone like Trump. So what I want to get at is, and the filibuster is part of this, but it’s only part of it, what could the next two years look like in terms of changing the dynamic of the US Senate?
Speaker 3:
I spent 10 months more in the Senate than the House, so that allows me to be a Senate snob.
Christopher Holt:
Yeah, that and the better food.
Speaker 3:
No question. I sit on our own podcasts. I feel like I’m an institutionalist. I can tell you and I can tell you the moment when Harry Reid got pissed off because Tom Coburn found a way to make an amendment related to particulate matter post [inaudible 00:34:09]. And he couldn’t take it. And he made a ruling from the chair and that was the first domino. Couldn’t take it. I couldn’t let Tom Coburn beat him. So he said, “Nope, we’re going to start changing rules because we’re the majority.” Then it got to noms, then Mitch McConnell went, “Hold my beer.” Or bourbon as you like. And y’all like the Supreme Court now. It’s deteriorating.
And let’s be frank… Go ahead and yell at me, now, one of the campaigns was absolutely positively screamingly overt, filibuster’s dead as Kentucky Fried Chicken for one issue if we win. So here we are. And my question that I keep asking, I’ve been asking since it became obvious Republicans going to have 53 at least the next morning, house passes board of security that they can get all on board on, comes over to the Senate and Chuck Schumer says, “No, far as will go is Langford. What a Republicans going to do?” Two years, that’s it. Y’all only got two years. I have grave concerns for the future of the filibuster. Damn, love it when I draw the place to the F dead science.
Speaker 4:
And let’s take that a step further, if it happens for that purpose and if legislation on immigration moves that quickly, it’s an awful lot easier to create a tax bill that you want to enact without having to have to abide by reconciliation in the Senate. So then that one moves in a more direct way.
Christopher Holt:
It’s interesting right now it sounds like everyone is operating under the assumption that they’ll run taxes through reconciliation and then move to immigration. But to some degree, I don’t know that that matters too much. But it’s not just the filibuster. So talking about recess appointments what happens with, let’s say we’re in reconciliation, we get a ruling from the parliamentarian that kicks out a provision.
Speaker 3:
Funny part was when we were doing this pre-election and we were talking about the filibuster, I made the case to Debbie which was that I can immediately come up with eight issues of which Democrats would love to see the filibuster goal. And one of the ones like applying the IRA to the private sector, which was killed by the Parliamentarian.
Speaker 4:
Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 3:
I had a list.
Speaker 4:
Fair enough.
Speaker 3:
There was a list.
Christopher Holt:
Let him go through it.
Speaker 3:
But if we go through the list, you’re going to be able to keep it together. I don’t need the tears’ thing.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I’ll be okay.
Speaker 3:
All right. Republicans, since I’ve started to have to say this out loud, I’m starting to go, shit, I can make a Republican list. And so where does that go? And that’s what we’ll see when they do that. The noms thing real quick, for those of you who don’t do senate procedure… Wait, who’s raising their hand on that one?
Christopher Holt:
No, we all do.
Speaker 3:
It’s that Harry Reid ended the filibuster for nominations, but it still allows you to use the clock. And so if they have to do 30 hours for every nomination in the entire federal government, okay, time is priceless in the Senate. That’s why they waste so much of it. And so that’s going to… Good, you’re close enough. So it was the distance that made that one go.
Christopher Holt:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
That the idea that the assistant secretary for legislation at the Department of blank is going to be 30 hours on the Senate floor. That’s not happening. Worth noting that the… I have this right? Yeah, I do have this right. It was lat when Trump’s first administration, the ASL never even got a vote because they didn’t want to burn the time. So that’s the problem they’re talking about. And that’s what you hear about that they’re not going through that again. And how they have to get there, I don’t know, but they’re not doing that again.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, the nominations process just appears fairly broken for people and for getting jobs. You’ve got to be in a pretty special situation where you can hang out for a year waiting to get through the US Senate to take a job. There are still nominations being done in the Senate for the Biden administration. That’s absurd.
Christopher Holt:
So Debbie, there’s lots of things that you could break into tears about and she would look at that-
Speaker 4:
Everyone’s trying to make me cry.
Christopher Holt:
Well, no, Salah said the opposite.
Speaker 4:
But I’m till good.
Christopher Holt:
As you look at the 119th Congress, is there anything that you are excited about? Are there opportunities here?
Speaker 4:
Well, I will say this, that I spent-
Christopher Holt:
I’m going to ask you too.
Speaker 4:
…24 years in the House of Representatives. And the really important thing when I reflect back on it is that I am as proud of the things I kept from happening, as I am about the things that I helped to become law. And that is really important. And I say to young people who are thinking of going to the Hill, “Oh, it’s going to be in the minority. Do I still want to be on the Hill?” Yes, we need you to stay on the Hill because you can make a big difference and change the trajectory of what can pass. And I’ll be completely frank, it’s also a hell of a lot of fun to attack really bad ideas. So you can have a very good time with that. And when you’re successful, it really feels good. And that’s what I look at is that-
Christopher Holt:
Throwing bomb.
Speaker 4:
More proud defeats.
Speaker 3:
Can you see she’s gone to that closet, that closet it’s been six years but she opened up the closet. She’s got her asbestos gloves on. She get out the lighter, click, click, click. Where’s the propane tank? Click, click.
Speaker 4:
Okay. I’m not a violent being.
Speaker 3:
Oh, come on. The imagery is perfect for that. I’m proud of the construction demolition, love my demolition
Speaker 4:
And all the home building shows, it’s demo day that’s the most fun.
Speaker 3:
That’s a fact.
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Not a violent person. She’s got that sledgehammer going, I’ve always wanted to do that to this-
Speaker 4:
Person sitting next to me.
Christopher Holt:
But Rodney, as you think… Well, I can sit between you if we need. Now Rodney, as you think about the Congress, are there some opportunities for policy that you are excited about? Are there places where you see either opportunity for bipartisan engagement or positive partisan engagement?
Speaker 3:
Remember, I’m a lobbyist, I’ve retired for a while, I am excited about nothing, I have no soul. So don’t even try to trick me with that question. Now, one of the things I’ve been focusing on is comps, comparables, thinking about this. And I really think a lot about ’21 and ’22 and that these similarities are there, which is it was a majority, a slim one but a majority. And it was all right, we’ve got to get stuff done. And it dominated two full years in ways that I think we could see very similarly with this coming Congress where there’s never going to be that. Well, October, November of the odd numbered year, if we aren’t getting it done there then we’re screwed to the next election. No, we will go all the way through. But then I also look back at ’21, ’22 and where they had opportunities to do some bipartisan things. Now, do they have that level of cooperation in them? We’ll see. And by an issue-by-issue basis, it’s a tough one to answer.
Speaker 4:
Okay. It is a tough one to answer, but I think something that’s really important is that when you talk to members of Congress or you talk to their staffs on the Hill, they want to introduce bipartisan legislation. They get the value of working across the party lines and of having consensus being built. And so that’s not what gets attention. But I do think there will still be a lot of ongoing bipartisanship. And as we move past these first key initiatives in the two years that have to get done, you’re still there for two years when things are less focused on legislating. And I do think there’s opportunities there.
Christopher Holt:
Well, we’re running down the clock here. But before we wrap up, and I’ll start with you Debbie, are there any things that we haven’t talked about that you think are particularly noteworthy or worth discussing with this group?
Speaker 3:
We asked you first.
Speaker 4:
I know
Christopher Holt:
You can jump in if you want to bail her out.
Speaker 1:
I’ll jump in. I’ll give you more time. We haven’t talked about IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act. I think it’s going to be fascinating to watch what happens there. I am very comfortable saying this, that I believe if you look at where Trump was in his first term and where IRA is today, I do not see any full-frontal assault on killing IRA, the drug negotiation provisions in IRA. I don’t see that happening. And if you want to think about that a bit, pick the ad running on that you can picture in your head, running on Fox and Friends one morning talking about Donald Trump. He said he wanted to lower drug prices. He said he’d fight the pharmaceutical manufacturers, looks like they own him. And maybe putting somebody character him on a leash and having a run around. And that’ll be that.
That will be that. So whoever they put in somewhere in the government who came from the pharmaceutical industry who may have some insipid idea to try to undo it, it’s one ad away from somebody going, no, stop it. I believe that very strongly. And if I’m wrong, well, then we were always wrong about where he stood. But my gut tells me it’s one ad on Fox and Friends away being under question. And that is any changes. Now, that doesn’t mean that people won’t try, but that’s one where for all the talk about it, I don’t see that working. But Pharmaceutical industry last I checked in this town, they roll up their sleeves and they do some work. So that the question is what do they want and where they want to go to show their members they got some antlers on the wall, that I wonder about.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. The one other thing I’d say on that one is that one thing that could happen is just some less robust negotiations. And I say that because that’s not Donald Trump being a bad negotiator. That’s the other guy’s bad rules. And so he can always point back and say, “That’s not my fault. It’s because it’s an ineffective law.” So jury out on where that goes and how they continue implementing it. But I totally agree it will not be a front attack. The other thing I think we have to be really on the lookout for is that in the Medicaid program, states are going to get to do whatever the heck they want.
And so the idea that waivers have to be something to expand coverage, which was very much a core of the Biden-Harris administration and that seeking ways to improve equity, those are not going to be what are the drivers for a Trump administration signing off on Medicaid waivers. So that’s really important. If you are trying to do things at a state level and get waivers or you’re trying to do things at the federal level that improve equity, I think it’s going to be vitally important to talk about rural and underserved populations and not use other words that cause offense. Language actually really matters with how policies are perceived. And so I think those are some things that I would be very careful about going forward.
Speaker 3:
I think another thing that we could bring in here is Loper Bright and none of us know where Loper Bright is going. But now back to-
Speaker 4:
Say what that is though.
Speaker 3:
Loper Bright and the replacement for which is the decision that replaced effectively the Chevron regime and deference given to the administration making rules. We don’t know how that’s going to work. We don’t know how it’s going to limit the current administration, but I can tell you how to get around it, a law. And again, another one that wasn’t supposed to be a joke. No, work requirements, you’re one law away from not having any lawsuits. If you want to try to squint and look at Title 19 and make them happen and then let the federal courts decide, that’s one thing. But you’re one act of Congress away. And if you don’t have a filibuster standing in your way, you can give whoever goes into that job carte blanche and ain’t no Chevron, Loper Brite or anything will get in the way. And that’ll be, again, something to watch along those lines because for all our talk about a post-Chevron, Loper Brite world, always remember easiest way to address it is called a law.
Speaker 4:
Yeah. And I know a lot of Democrats were very nervous about Loper-Brite when it happened. And where you sit is where you stand. So now people are saying, “Well, maybe Loper-Brite will be able to protect us from some of these things.” But that’s going to take years to work out. And Rodney’s exactly right, if you legislate you override the problem.
Christopher Holt:
Well, listen, thank you, Rodney and Debbie. Let’s have a round of applause for our panelists. And we’ll move on to the next panel.