Chuck Grassley Praises Trump Admin., Dr. Oz For Adding Rural Hospitals To Innovative Payment System

During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke about the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, I recognize the senator from Iowa.

00:05Rural hospitals in America are under the gun.

00:11Some of them are closing.

00:14We have about 90 rural hospitals in the state of Iowa.

00:20For a change, I have some good news for rural hospitals.

00:24For years, I've been pressing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS for short,

00:33to open applications for the 10 unfilled spots in a program that we call Rural Community Hospital Demonstration.

00:45This program allows Medicare to test innovative payment models to support rural hospitals.

00:55It boosts the financial viability for rural hospitals that are too large to be critical access hospitals

01:06and yet too small to benefit from Medicare's hospital inpatient prospective payment system.

01:15Currently, the program is helping four rural hospitals in Iowa, in Fort Dodge, Grinnell, Newton, and Spirit Lake.

01:28Now, for years, I've heard excuses from the executive branch for why they wouldn't fill the open spots with interested rural hospitals.

01:40So, earlier this year, I asked CMS Administrator Dr. Oz to fill the open spots in this rural hospital program.

01:53Finally, on May the 14th, Dr. Oz announced 10 new hospitals will be added to the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program.

02:06Also, hospitals who applied but were not selected will be put on a wait list if other spots open up.

02:17Now, until this time, CMS has been underutilizing this program and ignoring the interest of rural hospitals.

02:27I appreciate the Trump administration taking action to help rural America this way through helping a few more rural hospitals.

02:38I yield the floor.