Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I will now make remarks about this very important month and some of my own experiences I have had in my district. Coming out of the pandemic, the health workforce shortage crisis in the U.S. remains one of the greatest challenges to healthcare, and we must take immediate transformational action to address it. Increasing the number of healthcare professionals is critical to expanding access to care in rural areas and keeping rural hospitals and clinics open, just as my colleague was talking about. One way to address this issue is by ensuring providers are adequately compensated for their services. The Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is fundamentally broken. The Medicare payment rates have fallen by 29 percent over the last two decades, while the cost of running a practice is estimated to have increased by 3.6 percent. We need longer-term solutions that provide greater stability and certainty to our clinicians. Congress must pass legislation to stabilize Medicare physician pay so that doctors receive adequate reimbursement to cover the actual costs of providing care, especially in areas of rural America where these costs are higher. For doctors in my district, I am also advocating for increasing geographic adjustments to ensure provider pay more accurately reflects the uniquely higher cost of healthcare delivery in remote areas like Hawaii.…”