This bill adds a new "Panel of Health Advisors" inside the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The panel will give technical and functional advice to CBO on health and health care studies, analyses, and cost estimates. The panel must meet at least once a year and produce an annual report for the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Budget Committees. The report must list recommendations approved by at least 9 panel members and include a statement from the CBO Director about how those recommendations were used. The Director must publish the annual report on the CBO website. The Director may set rules for public disclosure of possible conflicts of interest and may use confidentiality agreements to protect sensitive information used for official work.
The panel will focus on areas such as CBO health studies (economic and non-economic), official cost estimates for health legislation, models CBO uses to project health impacts, and health sections of CBO publications (for example Budget and Economic Outlook and Federal Health Subsidies for Health Insurance reports).
The panel will have 15 members appointed within 90 days of the law taking effect. Appointments are split: three each by the House Budget Committee chair and ranking minority member, three each by the Senate Budget Committee chair and ranking minority member, and three by the CBO Director. Members should include nationally recognized experts in fields such as health finance, economics, actuarial science, health facility management, drug development, health plans, reimbursement, clinical providers, Medicare, and Medicaid. Members serve as special government employees, have 3-year terms with staggered starts, can serve up to two terms (6 years total), and the CBO Director will designate the panel chair and vice chair.
The bill also adds the panel to the CBO’s governing statute and updates the table of contents of that law.
If you follow federal health analysis or work in health policy, this creates a formal group of outside experts that will advise the CBO on health studies and cost estimates. CBO reports on health topics could reflect advice from this panel. The panel’s annual report will be public on the CBO website. Panel members may be required to make public disclosures about conflicts of interest and may sign confidentiality agreements for sensitive information.
No publicly available information on costs or budgetary effects is included in the bill text. The bill text does not include specific funding amounts or estimates of administrative costs.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.