First things, let’s talk about this bill doesn’t do. It doesn’t lower hospital costs, reduce drug prices, address the affordability crisis, or help hospitals struggling to keep their doors open.
Instead, it piles on duplicative reporting requirements with no clear benefit. Once again, my colleagues are invoking “health care transparency” as some type of cure-all, as though more paperwork will somehow undo all the damage they’ve caused the health care system with their Big Ugly Law.
It was in that bill that more than a trillion dollars was cut out of the healthcare system, all to to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
The result so far: 8 million Americans have already had their health coverage ripped away, and countless more are facing increased premium costs, higher deductibles, and skimpier coverage.
This isn’t just a threat to one’s health, but our entire system.
The harm doesn’t discriminate. I guarantee that most of the members on this dais have at least one facility back home that is now struggling to stay afloat in the face of these cuts and cost shifts. They are cutting mental health care, maternity care, and cancer care just to keep their doors open.
I hear from my hospitals weekly about the strain they are under. The last thing they need is another unfunded reporting mandate. They should be investing in patient care, not more compliance staff.
This bill also makes good on Republicans’ longstanding desire to undermine and disrupt the 340B program. By cooking the books on reporting requirements, this bill will make it seem like hospitals are scamming the program and purposefully omitting any data collection on how the facilities are using the 340B dollars.
Rather than lowering drug prices, Republicans want to increase burden to penalize those that can access discounted prices. It’s no surprise that PhRMA is supporting the bill.
This bill is a stalking horse for Republicans to hike drug prices. It’s a distraction from the real issues hospitals in our communities are facing. And on the technical merits, there are none.
American families, and the hospitals that care for them, deserve better.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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