New HEALTH Panel Act Creates 15-Member Expert Team to Fact-Check the CBO’s Health Care Math

The newly proposed Healthy Equipping And Lending Technical Help Panel Act, or the HEALTH Panel Act, is a procedural bill designed to boost the accuracy of government analysis. Specifically, it establishes a 15-member Panel of Health Advisors right inside the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This group’s sole purpose is to provide technical expertise and recommendations to the CBO so that its cost estimates, models, and economic analyses of health care legislation are as precise as possible.

Why Your Health Care Bill Depends on Good Math

When Congress considers a bill—say, one that changes how Medicare pays for drugs or expands coverage options—they need to know how much it’s going to cost taxpayers. That’s the CBO’s job: crunching the numbers. This Panel is essentially an external quality control team for the CBO’s health care homework. The bill mandates that these 15 experts, specializing in areas like health finance, actuarial science, and drug development, advise the CBO on its models and projections related to health insurance coverage, subsidies, and overall economic effects (Sec. 2).

Think of it this way: if a new policy is supposed to save $50 billion over ten years, you want to be sure that number is based on the best possible data and modeling. The Panel is tasked with reviewing the CBO’s assumptions and methodology. This means better, more reliable numbers for lawmakers, which ideally leads to more stable policy and fewer nasty surprises down the road for the rest of us paying into the system.

Who’s On the Team and How They Report

The composition and reporting structure are clearly laid out. The 15 members are appointed by the Chair and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Budget Committees (three each), with the remaining three chosen by the CBO Director. This split appointment process suggests an effort to ensure a mix of perspectives, though it still relies on political appointments for most slots. Members serve three-year terms but are capped at two terms total (six years), ensuring regular turnover and fresh expertise (Sec. 2).

Crucially, the Panel must meet at least once a year and submit an annual report to Congress detailing their recommendations. The CBO Director then has to publicly explain how they used—or didn't use—those recommendations in their official studies and cost projections. This creates a clear accountability loop: the experts give advice, and the CBO has to show its work (Sec. 2).

The Fine Print: Confidentiality and Conflicts

For the experts who join, the bill designates them as “special Government employees.” This status comes with rules: the CBO Director is authorized to set up requirements for members to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. Furthermore, the Director can require members to sign confidentiality agreements to protect sensitive government information they might encounter (Sec. 2). While this is standard practice for handling sensitive data, it does mean the specific details of the CBO’s inner workings and confidential requests from Congress will remain protected, even from public view.