Company: UHS
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-027785
Chunk: 57

Company: UNIVERSAL HEALTH SERVICES INC
Filing Date: 2025-02-26
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 57
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. While President Trump did not campaign on repeal of the Legislation, executive and legislative efforts to eliminate or reduce the effect of certain Legislation provisions may yet occur. The ultimate outcomes of legislative attempts to repeal or amend the Legislation and legal challenges to the Legislation are unknown. Legislation has already been enacted that has eliminated the penalty for failing to maintain health coverage that was an integral part of the original Legislation. 

It remains unclear what portions of the Legislation may remain, or whether any replacement or alternative programs may be created by any future legislation. Any such future repeal or replacement may have significant impact on the reimbursement for healthcare services generally, and may create reimbursement for services competing with the services offered by our hospitals. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that the adoption of any future federal or state healthcare reform legislation will not have a negative financial impact on our hospitals, including their ability to compete with alternative healthcare services funded by such potential legislation, or for our hospitals to receive payment for services.

The Legislation and its implementation have been, and remain, politically controversial. While attempts to repeal the entirety of the Legislation have not been successful to date, a key provision of the Legislation was repealed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and on December 14, 2018, a Texas Federal District Court Judge declared the Legislation unconstitutional, reasoning that the individual mandate tax penalty was essential to and not severable from the remainder of the Legislation. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which ultimately held in California v. Texas that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the Legislation’s requirement to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage, or the individual mandate.  The Court dismissed the case without 

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specifically ruling on the constitutionality of the Legislation. On September 7, 2022, the same Texas Federal District Court judge, in the case of Braidwood Management v. Becerra, ruled that the requirement that certain health plans cover services with an “A” or “B” recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force without cost sharing violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution and that the coverage of certain HIV prevention medication violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The government has appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. We are unable to predict the outcome of this litigation or its potential impact at this time.  

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”) was passed on August 16, 2022, which among other things, allows for CMS to negotiate prices for certain single-source drugs and biolog