Doggett Opening Statement at Health Subcommittee Hearing on Digital Health Data
(As prepared for delivery)
For me, the topic of today’s hearing is one close to home, since Austin continues to grow as a tech hub full of innovative startups, biotech companies, and some Big Tech companies. Across the street from my Austin office is Capital Factory, led by my friend Josh Baer, a local coworking space and accelerator program for cutting edge technologies bringing investors and creative entrepreneurs together. Austin is becoming a health tech leader thanks to innovative companies and collaboration with Dell Medical School, multiple UT departments, and the Army Futures Command.
I applaud the innovative work happening to improve health care and transform its delivery in ways that are more efficient and effective. While we all want the latest and greatest technologies, treatments, and cures for our neighbors in need, we simply cannot have this conversation without talking about access.
To the estimated 16 million Americans about to lose their access to all health care, and millions more about to face increased insurance premiums and potential hospital and physician practice closures, there is nothing beautiful about “the one, big, beautiful bill,” which Trump and his GOP accomplices are trying to force through this Congress by next week. Under Republican rule of all branches of government, our Nation is speeding toward a health care crisis where access may be as restricted, and the number of uninsured as great as during the troubling years before adoption of the Affordable Care Act.
This crisis is preventable, like so many of the health care complications that will result in increased emergency room visits when neighbors have no way to access health care and are forced to wait until the very last possible moment to seek help. High blood pressure going untreated until a heart attack or stroke. Diabetics forced to ration or forego insulin and eventually face amputations. An uninsured, impoverished woman like one my own doctor daughter once treated, with undetected breast cancer until the symptoms became so severe that little could be done to help.
For Texans, Medicaid is a lifeline for 3 million children, two-thirds of nursing home residents, and nearly a million adults with complex disabilities. About half the babies born in Austin, about half the children seen at Dell Children’s Hospital relied upon Medicaid to access care. Under the big ugly bill, burdensome new requirements, rushed through in coming months, will result in innocent, fully qualified individuals losing their access to a family physician. Deep funding cuts to safety net hospitals will result in closures and communities losing just about the only place they can receive any health care. In a new analysis, the Congressional Budget Office projects that states will respond to federal funding cuts by “reducing provider payment rates, reducing the scope or amount of optional services, and reducing Medicaid enrollment.” I ask unanimous consent to enter that letter in the record.
For 24 million Americans receiving care because of the Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans, enormous premium spikes and loss of coverage are only six months away. Unless we extend the tax credits that keep these plans affordable and stop the Trump sabotage, an estimated 8.2 million Americans, including 1.7 million Texans, will lose their access to a physician. For these folks, the Republican objective of repealing Obamacare, which failed here more than 60 times, for them Obamacare will be effectively repealed.
We’ve heard a lot about prices lately. From groceries to gas, the prices are too high and instead of bringing down those prices “drastically” as Trump promised again in January, his tariff taxes have only increased prices. Surely, the greatest betrayal is the price Republicans are willing to pay to give multinational corporations and billionaires even more tax breaks.
Indeed, the price of this bill is so high that Medicare, a program Trump and Republicans promised to preserve, will face a $500 billion cut starting on October 1 of this year. Each year for the next decade, every single health care provider that accepts Medicare will face a 4% pay cut. At a time when physicians are struggling to keep their practices open and consolidation and private equity buyouts are diminishing care and increasing prices, their bill will only make the burdens greater. And especially for those newly retiring, the difficult task of finding a physician who will accept Medicare is sure to become ever more difficult.
We should work to improve the efficiency of our health care system, prevent fraud, and lower outrageous prices. But nothing about the Republican bill will achieve these goals. It only endangers the health of hardworking Americans who are paying more than their fair share of the taxes that multinationals benefitted by this bill are so expert at dodging.
There is great innovation occurring in this country, often with the support of taxpayer research funding. We have a responsibility to ensure every American receives the benefit of these new technologies. To do that, we must protect their access to health care. I look forward to today’s discussion on how to achieve that.
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