The day after the midterm elections, Chris Rorick came straight off the stage at the Dental Trade Alliance (DTA) meeting to talk about what comes next in Washington, DC.
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast, sponsored by Overjet and recorded live in Phoenix, host Kevin Henry talks with Rorick, an adviser to the DTA whose job is to represent the association and its members before Congress and regulatory agencies.
Their conversations begins with tariffs.
The day after the midterm elections, Chris Rorick came straight off the stage at the Dental Trade Alliance (DTA) meeting to talk about what comes next in Washington, DC.
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast, sponsored by Overjet and recorded live in Phoenix, host Kevin Henry talks with Rorick, an adviser to the DTA whose job is to represent the association and its members before Congress and regulatory agencies.
Their conversations begins with tariffs.
Chris Rorick.
Rorick says Congress has very little control over tariffs, which are largely set at the executive level. He expects President Donald Trump to keep pursuing tariffs despite the election results. Trump, Rorick predicts, will probably expand the tariffs to new categories, with DTA watching pharmaceuticals and medical devices closely.
Congress, he says, will provide strong oversight and push mostly symbolic legislation opposing tariffs, but it is unlikely to repeal the president’s power to impose them.
The conversation then turns to healthcare. Rorick says Democrats in many states ran strongly on the Medicaid cuts in last year’s reconciliation bill, and he expects Congress to try to reverse them quickly, possibly through the appropriations process, which he says could be used to delay or soften the cuts within the first year.
Henry asks whether the next two years will be a stalemate. Rorick says he hopes not. He expects investigations, since this is the president’s last term, but sees room for negotiation. After what he calls an overwhelming blue wave, he says Republicans feel pressure to act on affordability, and Democrats are under pressure to deliver on what they ran on.
First comes the lame duck session. Rorick points to roughly 20 voting days, pressure to raise the debt limit, and a December 11 funding deadline. Congress must either pass a full-year omnibus spending bill or push another continuing resolution into the new Congress. Because appropriations require 60 votes, he says Democrats will have to come along.
Asked what dentists should watch, Rorick notes the turnover among physician members of Congress, but says payment reform is the major concern. Medicare and Medicaid payment rates have continued to decline, he says, and restoring Medicaid cuts or expanding Medicare without raising rates risks leaving too few providers to deliver benefits. “Everybody wants expanded access, but do we have the reimbursement?” he asks.
