“A lot depends on what happens in the House of Representatives.” final results He said it was still flowing. “If this were to go to Republicans, I think they have a real chance of repealing the ACA.”

Pellegrini, who is also president of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, said she is also concerned about health care costs, affordability and women’s health issues, especially under the Trump administration.

Noting that Massachusetts has strong protections on abortion, birth control and in vitro fertilization rights, he said “those protections could be repealed at the federal level” if a Republican-led Congress passes the bans.

Pellegrini also said he was concerned about the role anti-vaccination advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also opposed fluoride in the water supply, might play in the new administration. concerns were also voiced by a number of local biotech leaders last week. “His views on health care are very extreme and not supported by science,” he said.

Steven Holtzman, retired chief executive of Decibel Therapeutics and former vice president of Cambridge-based Biogen, was most concerned about the rollback of the ACA and the further erosion of reproductive health services for women, including access to abortion.

Although Trump has signaled that he does not want to revisit one of the failed initiatives he signed during his first term, such as repealing the ACA, Holtzman said Trump is “volatile” and is surrounded by ideologues who might try to do so.

He said Project 2025, the political road map published by the conservative Heritage Foundation and embraced by some Republicans, is committed to unraveling the ACA and rolling back Medicaid benefits. He said he feared “a large percentage of our citizens will return to the pre-ACA days” when millions of Americans lacked health insurance and access to health care.

Similarly, Holtzman was concerned that reproductive health services, including access to abortion, would become harder for women to access. The US Supreme Court, which includes three conservative justices appointed by Trump, will rule on Roe v. in 2022. Wade dropped his case. This landmark decision restored the power to federal and state legislatures to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal law.

Trump has moved away from some national abortion restrictions that conservatives want and has vowed to veto a nationwide abortion ban if it comes to his desk in the presidential debate. But Holtzman said he feared a politicized judiciary and Justice Department could lead to court decisions that would further erode abortion protections that have already narrowed in some states.

John Maraganore, executive chairman of the newly formed Cambridge startup City Therapeutics and former founding chairman of Cambridge-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, was less concerned about further abortion restrictions or a rollback of the ACA, which remains popular even among some conservative voters.

Maraganore was more concerned about the possibility of Trump giving Kennedy a leadership role at a federal public health agency; Trump supported this possibility at a recent rally, saying, “I’m going to let him run wild on health care.”

Trump promised that Kennedy would be included in his administration and appointed him to the Republican transition team. The president-elect did not specify a potential job for Kennedy, scion of the storied Democratic political dynasty.

“I am happy to have detractors, but the leadership of these institutions needs to be guided by science and evidence,” Maraganore said.

Meanwhile, the head of the state’s largest nurses union said he is concerned that the growing crisis in the state’s health care system will not be resolved or could worsen under the Trump administration.

“From the perspective of the people providing care, this is not good,” said Julie Pinkham, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, who expressed fears that the state’s health care reforms and its ability to treat low-income patients could be jeopardized. He said Trump and his inner circle “don’t see these as priorities they care about.”

Pinkham said the healthcare workforce in Massachusetts has been overburdened for years, requiring higher federal reimbursements for insurance programs for many patients.

“Things are pretty fragile post-Covid,” he said, suggesting long-standing problems were exacerbated by the closure of two more Steward Health Care hospitals in the summer. “We went through a major hospital bankruptcy. “The workforce is exhausted and we have backups in the system.”

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at [email protected]. Robert Weisman can be reached at [email protected].