“Firstly, based on what we know today, we do not expect the loss of ACA subsidies or any potential policy changes under the big one big beautiful bill to have a material impact on our medtech performance.”

In context

“y Biegelsen from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live. Larry Biegelsen: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question, and I'll echo my congratulations on a nice end to the year here. So, Tim, there's some dynamics in the medtech market that you called out in the slides as well as the loss of coverage in the US from the enhanced subsidies expiring. How are you thinking about the medtech market in 2026 relative to 2025? How are you thinking about J&J's adjusted operational growth in 'twenty-six versus 'twenty-five? Do you expect an acceleration? It'd be helpful if you could touch upon the outlook for your EP business, which is growing below market. Thank you. Tim Schmid: Larry, thank you for the question. Let me touch quickly on the first question around ACA subsidies and put that one to bed. Firstly, based on what we know today, we do not expect the loss of ACA subsidies or any potential policy changes under the big one big beautiful bill to have a material impact on our medtech performance. And, you know, while we'll continue to monitor how coverage dynamics evolve, at this stage, we see no indication of an impact on our growth trajectory. The primary constraint, as you know, Larry, in our business is really more about clinical capacity, not coverage levels. And procedure demands remained very robust across our portfolio, which I think really speaks to the resilience of the businesses that we've decided to participate in. Turning to your question about the year, we do expect to see acceleration. We expect the year to be better in 2026 than it was in 2025. And I think it's important to maybe hedge this question on really our strategy. And I think, you know, for the last couple of years, we've been very clear in articulating our strategy focused on shifting our portfolio into”