This week, 8000 healthcare operators and investors will head west to the 44^th Annual JP Morgan Health Conference in San Francisco. Per JPM: “The (invitation-only) conference serves as a vital platform for networking, deal-making, and discussing the latest innovations in healthcare, attracting global industry leaders, emerging companies, and members of the investment community.” Daily media coverage will be provided by Modern Healthcare and STAT and most of the agenda will be at the St. Francis Hotel at Union Square.

General sessions about drug discovery, AI in healthcare obesity and more are scheduled, but that’s not why most make the trip. Representatives of the 500 presenting companies are there to engage with health investors in the tightly orchestrated speed-dating format JPM has fine-tuned through the years.

JPM circa 44 will be no different this year. It’s scheduled as company financials and market indicators for 2025 are coming in. Healthcare deal-flow was robust and bell-weather companies had a good year overall. The S&P, Dow and Nasdaq ended the year at all-time highs and investors appear poised to do more healthcare deals in 2026.  Despite growing voter concern about affordability and their costs of living, there’s nothing on the immediate horizon that will dampen healthcare investor appetite for deals. That includes policy changes from the Trump administration that advantage healthcare companies that adapt to the administration’s playbook. It’s built on 3 fundamental assumptions:

• The healthcare system is fundamentally flawed. Waste, fraud and abuse are deep-seeded in its SOP. It protects its own and resists accountability. The public wants change.
• Fixing the health system requires policy changes that are attractive to the private companies that currently operate in the system. A federally-mandated regulatory framework (aka “the Affordable Care Act”) will cost more and be harmful. Companies, not Congress, are keys to system transformation.
• Voters will support changes that make healthcare services more affordable and accessible. The means toward that end are less important.  

What’s evolved from the administration’s first year in office is a mode of operating that’s predictable and uncomfortable to industries like healthcare:

It’s transactional, not ideologic. The administration believes its control of Congress, SCOTUS, the FTC and DOJ and legislatures in red states give it license to disrupt norms with impunity. Price transparency, limits on consolidation, mandated participation in ACOs, supply-chain disruption and AI-enabled workforce modernization are ripe for administrative action. A long-term vision for the system is not required to make needed short-term changes supported by its MAHA base.

It’s populism vs. corporatization. Healthcare’s proclivity for self-praise, addiction to “Best of…” recognition, celebrity CEOs and handsome executive compensation have postured it as “Big Business” in the eyes of most. Business practices associated with corporatization are fair game to the administration’s corrective agenda: hearings in the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committees will showcase the administration’s populist grievances. The administration will lavish advantages on private organizations that demonstrate support for its policies.

This week, the Senate will probably green-light a two-year extension of Tax Credits to temporarily avoid premium hikes. Barring a major escalation of tension abroad, attention will turn back to affordability where the K-economy is exacting its toll on lower-and-middle income households and widening despair among the young.

The health system’s role in making matters better or worse for consumers will be front and center alongside housing and costs of living. That context will be key to discussions between health investors and companies seeking their funds, though subordinate to term sheets.

In 2026, the Trump effect on dealmaking in healthcare will be significant.