Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2551

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 2551
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28, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order to initiate a special enrollment period from February 15, 2021 through May 15, 2021
for purposes of obtaining health insurance coverage through the ACA marketplace. The executive order also instructed certain governmental
agencies to review and reconsider their existing policies and rules that limit access to healthcare, including among others, reexamining
Medicaid demonstration projects and waiver programs that include work requirements, and policies that create unnecessary barriers to
obtaining access to health insurance coverage through Medicaid or the ACA. It is unclear how future litigation and the healthcare reform
measures of the current administration will impact the ACA.

Other
legislative changes have been proposed and adopted in the United States since the ACA was enacted. In August 2011, the Budget Control
Act of 2011, among other things, created measures for spending reductions by Congress. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,
tasked with recommending a targeted deficit reduction of at least $1.2 trillion for the years 2013 through 2021, was unable to reach
the required goals, thereby triggering the legislation’s automatic reduction to several government programs. This includes aggregate
reductions of Medicare payments to providers up to 2% per fiscal year, which went into effect in April 2013, following passage of the
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and will remain in effect through 2030, with the exception of a temporary suspension from May 1, 2020
through March 31, 2022, followed by a period of 1% payment adjustment April 1 - June 30, 2022, followed by a 2% payment adjustment beginning
July 1, 2022. Further, in January 2013, former President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among
other things, further reduced Medicare payments to several providers, including hospitals, imaging centers and cancer treatment centers,
and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. Any
reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors,
which may adversely affect our future profitability. Additionally, there has been increasing legislative and enforcement interest in
the United States with respect to specialty drug pricing practices.

59

Specifically,
there have been several recent United States Congressional inquiries and proposed bills designed to,