NEW ANALYSIS: TRUMPCARE MAY CUT ORTHO VOLUMES 1.2% (Orthopedics This Week)
A new analysis by one of Wall Street’s top medical device research groups has concluded that the May 4 passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), if ultimately signed into law by President Trump, would likely reduce orthopedic procedure volumes 0.7% in 2018 and, cumulatively, cut overall volumes 1.2% in 2026.
The new analysis also concluded that the spine surgery sector would be the hardest hit.
The May 17 research report was issued by Wells Fargo Securities and was based on their analysis of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the initial House AHCA bill. That CBO analysis concluded that, if passed, the AHCA bill would pull insurance back from 14 million to 24 million Americans in 2018 and 2026, respectively.
The CBO will be updating this scoring in the coming weeks, but most analysts, including the Wells Fargo team, don’t expect the basic conclusions to change materially.
Five takeaways from both the CBO report and Wells Fargo’s analysis:
People with healthcare coverage tend to consume more healthcare services than those without coverage. Wells Fargo’s team found that the number of proce...
