Margaret "Peggy" Tighe

Peggy Tighe is a principal in Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville's legislative group.

Peggy Tighe deciphers and interprets highly complex healthcare matters and translates them into action. She teams up with health systems, patient groups, and provider organizations to develop persuasive policy arguments and strategies to influence Congress and relevant agencies, creating change to protect and support providers and the patients they serve.

Peggy focuses her practice on lobbying, coalition building, crafting and implementing grassroots campaigns, and coordinating media relations. A dynamic and entertaining speaker, she is well versed in giving congressional and policy updates on subjects such as Medicare provider reimbursement and burden relief, patient safety, medical liability reform, the 340B Drug Pricing Program, including a focus on Ryan White Clinics, transplant policy, cancer early detection, genetic screening, and mental health.

Peggy has spent her career understanding the complex policy problems faced by health systems, patient groups, and provider organizations, and influencing federal policy and decision-making on their behalf. Peggy's prior experience in healthcare lobbying and policy with two highly visible, national healthcare associations, the American Medical Association and the Health Insurance Association of America, as well as with dozens of national coalitions and individual clients, make her unique in this space.

Peggy has built and actively nurtures contacts and relationships on both sides of the political aisle, focusing her efforts on finding the right policy solution. She served as AMA's lead lobbyist and primary contact with House Republican leadership, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and some 80 Congressional assignments, including the majority of physician members of Congress. She also works closely with the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance committee, Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, and other relevant committees on both sides of the aisle.

Described by clients, Congressional staff, colleagues, and contacts as "incredibly responsive" and "a team player," Peggy devotes enormous effort to ensure that clients never wonder about her activity and commitment, that members and their staff always have the tools and information they need to support their decision-making, and that her strong relationships on Capitol Hill result in direct benefits to clients. Yet, she's never too busy to offer assistance, mentoring, or guidance to her own team, Hill staffers, or other government relations professionals, as evidenced by her role as past President of Women in Government Relations, a non-partisan government relations association in the Washington metropolitan area and her award as Mentor of the Year from the Public Leadership Education Network.

Peggy's recent legislative achievements include:

• Playing a pivotal role in the passage of law, the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, that allows for research on transplanting organs from HIV-positive donors into HIV-positive recipients. Signed into law by President Obama in 2013, the law replaced outdated law that made such transplants illegal.
• Directing Congressional efforts resulting in passage of bipartisan legislation to enhance and better coordinate medical rehabilitation research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the landmark 21st Century Cures Act. The rehabilitation research legislation, S.800/H.R. 1631, the Enhancing the Stature and Visibility of Medical Rehabilitation Research at the NIH Act, was included in Section 2040 of the Cures Act and signed into law in 2016.
• Working with multiple Congressional champions and garnering support from over 100 organizations to support several extensions, approved on the House and Senate floor, to continue the Independence at Home (IAH) demonstration through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMI). The IAH demonstration is a physician-led team delivering primary care services to chronically ill patients in their homes.
• Leading the Regulatory Relief Coalition, a group of national physician specialty organizations advocating for regulatory burden reduction in Medicare. RRC’s work resulted in passage on the House floor of the Improving Seniors' Timeless Access to Care Act (September 2022). The legislation would improve efficiency and bring transparency to prior authorization in the Medicare Advantage program.

Additionally, Peggy has:

• Coordinated the activities of a hospital coalition that obtained more than $3 billion over a five-year period to implement beneficial changes to members' Medicare area wage index classifications.
• Led a coalition of five New Orleans area hospitals in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, securing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to ensure that the hospitals were able to remain open and serve the community.
• Effectively lobbied to persuade three U.S. Senators to break with their party on three occasions to vote in support of the AMA-backed Patients Bill of Rights in 1999.
• Lead lobbyist for House victories on the Medicare Fee Schedule, Medical Liability Reform, Patients' Bill of Rights, and Antitrust Relief, key issues of great importance to the medical community.
• Strategized and implemented many of the federal grassroots activities – including field director grasstops (high-level grassroots), coalition‑building, letter‑writing, and database‑building in the Health Insurance Association of America's successful "Harry and Louise" national healthcare reform campaign.