During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) spoke about access to healthcare in rural communities.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We are in the process of reaching a conclusion and debating at least the first step of, maybe now the second step, of reconciliation.
00:11An opportunity for us to make the tax code more permanent.
00:16An opportunity for us to reduce spending and to hopefully get the budget better in balance.
00:24To bring our debt under control.
00:27But today I just want to highlight a small portion of what this debate ultimately will consider.
00:34And that's the issue of Medicaid.
00:37Mr. President, I come, as you do, from a very rural state.
00:42And Medicaid is a component of how we provide health care to low-income individuals.
00:50And how we care for and provide medical care and treatment for those with disabilities.
00:55And I want to highlight from my own personal point of view how valuable that is.
01:01The necessity of us finding ways for low-income individuals and individuals with disabilities to be able to access health care.
01:09And as this conversation and debate continues, I want to make certain that my colleagues know, in my view, the value of making certain we do no harm to those in desperate need of health care.
01:24In Kansas and across the country.
01:28I'm certain, perhaps without a doubt, there are flaws in the system and abuse that occurs.
01:36And our focus should be on eliminating those flaws and that abuse.
01:42And, Mr. President, I want to also talk about another aspect of Medicaid funding.
01:50A lot of what I've worked on as a United States Senator and before that as a member of the House of Representatives is trying to make certain that rural America, rural Kansas in particular, has a future.
02:00That the community that I grew up in, now population less than 2,000, has a future.
02:07An opportunity for people to come there, live there, raise their families there, educate their children there, to retire there.
02:16Rural America is hugely important to me and in my view, hugely important to the country.
02:21One of the challenges we face in rural Kansas, and Kansas generally, is access to health care.
02:31And our community hospitals are hugely important.
02:35Our ability to maintain those hospitals and keep their doors open is a major priority for me.
02:43During COVID, we took extraordinary steps to make sure we didn't lose a health care provider and that the citizens of Kansas and the country could access health care.
02:54One of the components that pays for that health care is Medicaid.
03:00It's not the hugest component.
03:03Medicare, private insurance, other sources, private pay, are utilized for the hospital to generate the revenue to keep their doors open.
03:12But this keeping of hospital doors open matters.
03:17As I stated, my goal of making sure that rural communities have a future, that future disappears in the absence of access to health care.
03:29So, a significant portion of that effort of mine to preserve, protect, and defend rural Kansas, and our state generally is rural,
03:39is to make sure that the hospitals have the capability, the revenues necessary to provide the services that the community needs.
03:46Medicare is a component of that.
03:49Nine percent of hospital revenues come from Medicaid.
03:57It's also true that Medicaid only covers 65 percent of the costs of the health care provided to someone who receives Medicaid benefits.
04:05The average operating margin for a Kansas hospital is a negative 7 percent, meaning that the revenues don't cover the costs.
04:15And there's $1.1 billion in uncompensated care.
04:23In other words, the hospitals of Kansas, our health care providers, have a shortfall.
04:29They take in a certain amount of revenue, but that revenue is $1.1 billion for uncompensated care.
04:39That revenue doesn't exist.
04:41Eight hospitals have closed in our state since 2015.
04:46I've visited every hospital in Kansas, most of them numerous times.
04:51I've talked to hospital administrators and patients and board members and the CFO.
04:55One of my standard questions is often, so are you in the red or the black?
05:00And the most common answer to that question is, well, depends on what day you ask.
05:06My point in making these statements is that as we debate reconciliation and as we debate the instructions,
05:16in the case of the House, instructions to the Energy and Commerce Committee, and in the Senate, instructions to the Finance Committee,
05:24those instructions in the bill that we're considering right now are significantly different.
05:31The instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee is to cut $888 billion from Medicaid.
05:39The instructions to the Senate Finance Committee is to cut $1 billion.
05:45Now, in both these circumstances, these are minimum amounts.
05:50But I wanted my constituents to know that, in my view, before this product is concluded,
05:59before this legislative endeavor is included and we've sent the instructions to the committees
06:04and the bills come back from the committees, I want to make sure that we take into account the importance,
06:10the importance of people who are low income and have disabilities and the importance of Medicaid to them,
06:16but also the broader issue of what it means to a community to lose its hospital.
06:22Often that hospital is the largest employer in communities across Kansas.
06:27That's a component. But the reality is that our citizens move away.
06:32If you're a young family and you're looking for a place to live, or you're a young family that has grown up in a community,
06:39in the absence of access to health care, and it's broader than just hospitals.
06:44It's the hospital, it's the nursing home, it's the community pharmacist, it's the physician, it's the nurse practitioner,
06:50it's the chiropractor, it's the optometrist.
06:54All those individuals and their professions matter to whether or not communities across my state will be around for time to come.
07:05I want to highlight this issue today because the process is beginning
07:11that will set the stage for whether or not the future is bright
07:16for individuals and the communities they live in Kansas and across the country.
07:23Mr. President, I yield the floor.