While political news is gushing from Washington on a daily basis, actual laws or regulations are not as forthcoming from DC as they are in the states.
Because of the slim majority Republicans have in both houses, the new Congress will have what looks like only two opportunities to pass any actual laws this year.
The first opportunity will be in late March when Congress hopes to pass either a budget resolution for 2025 or a continuing resolution to delay the deadline to pass it. For the 2025 budget, we’ve already seen the last Congress pass (the buck with) two continuing resolutions.
Budget and continuing resolutions also allow Congress to tack on additional legislation that is not budget related.
The second opportunity for Congress to pass legislation will be within a planned budget reconciliation bill, expected to be introduced in the first half of 2025.
While we wait for a budget resolution and/or the budget reconciliation for laws to be passed, not much in federal regulation is expected to move for a while either. The Trump Administration froze all of the Biden Administration’s rules that hadn’t taken effect, and, at least in healthcare. Leadership in the federal agencies has yet to be chosen to review those frozen regulations.
Where Congress and the federal government may be stepping back, however, state legislatures are moving quickly to develop policy and pass laws.
In his first week, President Trump rolled back a “sweeping” Biden-era executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) regulation that established protocols for safe development and use of AI including transparency requirements for AI developers in the healthcare sector.
In its place, Trump announced a $500 billion dollar commercial initiative – “Stargate” – to develop AI infrastructure. The primary goal of Stargate is for the commercial sector to figure out how to generate the extremely large amounts of energy required for AI advancements.
By rejecting the previous administration’s strategy on AI and leaning in on a commercial initiative, Trump signaled the unlikelihood that any significant federal agency requirements on AI would be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, in 2024, more than 100 healthcare-related AI bills were introduced in 34 states. Legislation included transparency around AI purpose and use, risk-mitigation in terms of bias and discrimination, and the development of AI task forces.
Specifically, California, Utah, and Colorado passed comprehensive AI laws that impact many industries and services, including healthcare. As an example of what these laws cover, the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act puts requirements on AI systems that make decisions that may have, quote, “significant effects on the provision or denial of services,” including healthcare services.
Already in 2025, five states have introduced similarly comprehensive bills that would regulate the use of A.I. in providing healthcare. All politics is local, they say. In that spirit, although our newsfeeds and social media are peppered with news about the politics and changes going on in DC, we’d all do well to pay attention to what is going on right outside our doors, in our state capitals, where legislation may be moving much faster this year than at the federal level.
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Within the healthcare regulatory landscape, there are a couple phrases that have become a bit played out of late: “let the courts decide” or “we’ll see what
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