For over a year now, we have been hearing from our Beltway insider friends that Chris Klomp, a political outsider originally placed in charge of Medicare, was someone to watch in the Trump administration. This prediction was proven true when Klomp was elevated to Chief Counselor of HHS in February, and now he is being reported on as the de facto leader of HHS while Kennedy keeps his distance from the rank-and-file workforce. He has also ingratiated himself to President Trump, who refers to him as “my favorite Mormon,” after Klomp, who is a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, negotiated drug pricing deals with major pharmaceutical companies. 
 
Beyond the standard report that paints him as an ambitious, competent, and detail-oriented leader, both his private sector experience and current policy focus underscore his deep interest in IT modernization. Back in 2019, when he was still CEO of a provider-focused data-sharing platform, Klomp said that “data silos are actually going to die,” and that clinical interoperability supported by AI is the future. Now, under his leadership, CMS just launched a new Office of Health Technology and Products that aims to position the federal government as a leader pushing the development of, among other things, AI and interoperability. This should be seen as a direct challenge to Epic, a company we have heard Klomp distrusts, and their hold on the provider industry’s data.