Statement of Representative Danny K. Davis

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word, and I certainly appreciate Dr. Murphy’s skill, passion and interest in healthcare and healthcare delivery.

But one year after Donald Trump and the Republicans cut over $1 trillion out of health care to fund tax cuts for billionaires and big businesses, millions of people have lost health insurance. Millions more are crushed by exploding health care costs. Hospitals are closing and cutting services and staff. People face the impossible choice between seeing a doctor, paying rent, eating, or getting gasoline. Yet the Republican leadership is moving a bill that does absolutely nothing – nothing - to lower health costs or stabilize hospitals.

More than 175,000 Illinoisans have lost their Medicaid, CHIP, or ACA coverage after the GOP’s Big Ugly Bill. Premiums for Illinois receiving ACA tax cuts increased by an average of 144% this year. Illinois hospitals alone are expected to lose just under $31.3 billion annually. With 26 health care providers at-risk now for cuts, closing or have closed, including one across the street from where I live.

At a time when we should be helping hospitals after we cut $1 trillion from health care, the GOP solution is a bill with additional paperwork rather than tax credits to help people buy health insurance and rather than funding to help hospitals hire health professionals to care for people.

I just happen to have more hospital beds in my district than any other Member of Congress. My professional work background includes working with health centers to provide low-cost health care to people in need. I co-led the bipartisan Rural and Underserved Health Task Force where we recognized that rural and underserved hospitals face similar challenges as urban hospitals.

This bill is an offensive answer to the urgent health care crisis facing America. The bill does absolutely nothing to lower cost of patients. It does nothing to help hospitals provide low-cost care. It does nothing to push Pharma to lower drug costs.

The bill rejects the needs of hospitals in urban areas by carving out protections for certain rural hospitals, ignoring the very work done bipartisanly by members of this Committee. It unfairly targets hospitals solely on the basis of their size without accounting for their unique cost structures, especially for academic health systems and teaching hospitals who invest in their communities and ensure access to care for patients with complex, highly acute care needs - such as transplantation, Level 1 trauma care, neonatal intensive care, and burn care.

These health systems and hospitals train tomorrow’s health care workforce and invest in medical research. Rather than helping health systems and hospitals focus on treating patients, train future health care providers, conduct cutting edge research, and serve their communities, this bill forces these health entities to divert critical funding to administratively burdensome requirements.

So, I strongly oppose the Tax-Exempt Hospital Transparency act for its abject failure to meet the health care crisis facing Americans, hospitals, and communities.

And Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit to the record statements by the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and, America’s Essential Hospitals voicing their concerns about the Tax-Exempt Hospital Transparency Act.