Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Senators at Joint Economic Committee Hearing Cite Hospital Consolidation, Propose Legislative Fixes
Summary
At a Joint Economic Committee hearing, two speakers debated how consolidation and policy choices have affected health-care costs, alleging overbilling in Medicare and advocating measures such as the Hospital Competition Act and longer-term insurance contracts to increase competition.
Speaker 1 criticized provisions of the Affordable Care Act (referred to in the transcript as "Obamacare") and recent policy changes, saying they have encouraged consolidation among hospitals and provider systems and weakened cost controls. The speaker noted the repeal of the Cadillac tax and argued that that removal of a cost-control mechanism reduced private incentives to manage spending.
Speaker 1 accused large, vertically integrated hospital systems of using market power to raise prices, enforce non-compete agreements and, as the speaker put it, engage in "legalized fraud" against federal programs. The speaker alleged that providers have "hit 100 billions…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
