Welcome back to health care predictions season! We invite you to join us and gaze into our crystal ball as we look ahead to 2025. But first, let’s look back and grade last year's performance.
In 2024, we did better than usual. We got eight and a half out of 10 predictions right. We feel smug about our prediction that Medicare Advantage’s (MA) underperformance would lead to turnover at big payors with CEO Karen Lynch departing CVS Health (we are rooting for Steve Nelson and Sree Chaguturu at CVS). We were sadly right that nothing happened to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) other than public shaming (but the PBM-branded biosimilars are a cool thing to watch). And we correctly predicted that the Supreme Court would protect access to Mifepristone (though the Trump Administration may now set their sights on the Comstock Act to restrict mail order access). Finally, as anticipated, once mighty unicorns revealed themselves as bad businesses and the Federal Trade Commission set its sights on health care monopolies by unveiling its case against United Healthcare. We are saddened and send our condolences to Brian Thompson’s family and his United Healthcare colleagues.
