We closed last week with a budget deal that addressed nearly every health care stakeholder issue. With 2017 finally over, we begin 2018 with the next budget. This week the Administration will release its FY 2019 budget and will spend the next couple weeks defending and promoting it. We wait to see how the budget will be received by the Republican-controlled Congress.

Typically, the Administration’s annual budget exercise is a way to offer priorities and elevate issues that may not be palatable legislatively. However, it’s being reported that the President’s budget will aim to reduce the deficit by $3 trillion the next 10 years, rather than eliminate the deficit,a typical conservative guiding principle. After the massive spending increase in the budget agreement and a formal budget proposal that doesn’t come into balance, expect conservatives to be overt in their criticism.