Barriers to Quality Health Care

One of the greatest challenges we face in our country, especially in rural areas, is access to quality health care. Unfortunately, the President’s health care law and the continuous flow of red tape from federal agencies continue to threaten the ability of Americans to receive the care they need.

More and more Americans are losing their insurance due to the failure of Obamacare CO-OPs. Though misleading, the term “CO-OP” in this context stands for the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans created by the President’s health care law. The CO-OP program was included in the law to provide low-cost government startup loans for new insurance providers, but it has quickly become yet another broken promise of Obamacare.

CoOportunity Health, the CO-OP which served Nebraska and Iowa, was the first to collapse and left more than 80,000 Nebraskans again searching for insurance. When Tennessee’s Community Health Alliance faced potential insolvency a few months later, the CO-OP received permission to suspend enrollment. For unknown reasons, CoOportunity Health was not allowed to do the same. I am still working to get answers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as to why this happened and am disappointed in the lack of information I have received.

Last week, the Louisiana Health Cooperative announced it was discontinuing insurance policies and would not offer coverage in 2016. This latest failed CO-OP will leave 17,000 Louisiana consumers without insurance at the end of this year.

Millions of Americans lost their insurance after being told they could keep it, and now many are losing coverage a second time after trying to comply with the law. I have introduced legislation to exempt CO-OP customers, including Nebraskans who purchased policies through CoOportunity Health, from paying Obamacare’s individual mandate penalties if they lose coverage. No one should be penalized under a law when the law’s own failures prevented compliance.

To bring more attention to this issue in Washington, I hosted a briefing for congressional staff this week on Obamacare CO-OPs. With a panel of health insurance experts, we discussed the background of the CO-OP programs and significant concerns about their financial stability. This program has already received two billion taxpayer dollars, and there are currently no indications these loans will be repaid.

Though the President’s health care law remains one of the top threats to quality care, other regulations from Washington are impeding providers’ ability to make decisions in the best interest of their patients. The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, on which I serve, hosted a productive hearing this week on rural health disparities. I had the honor of inviting Shannon Sorensen, CEO of Brown County Hospital in Ainsworth, to testify about the impacts of onerous regulations stretching the resources of rural hospitals.

To help ensure access to quality rural health care, I have introduced two bills with bipartisan support. The Critical Access Hospital Relief Act, which now has more than 70 cosponsors in the House, would remove the burdensome 96-hour precertification requirement for patients at Critical Access Hospitals. This unnecessary rule forces providers to put regulatory compliance above patient welfare when making medical decisions. Additionally, I have introduced the Rural Health Care Provider Relief Act to delay physician supervision requirements which make delivering care difficult in rural areas with few doctors.

As Congress works to address our country’s health care challenges, I am hopeful my rural health bills will move forward soon to give our providers the flexibility they need to best serve all patients. Americans face many barriers to quality health care, but I will continue pursuing patient-centered solutions while fighting red tape and failed policies.