The health of people and communities is only as strong as the investments we make to ensure access to high-quality, affordable care and reduce disparities.

Although cases are declining nationwide, safety net hospitals have not recuperated from the effects of the pandemic on their finances and still need additional resources.

Ensuring a reliable safety net, one ready to meet the moment in any crisis, means robustly protecting and bolstering the mechanisms and ideals that make the safety net function.

Cutting the DSH program — especially with hospitals still on the front lines of COVID-19 — is misguided. Our latest Our View dispels common misconceptions about these proposed DSH cuts.

To support the sustainability of the health care safety net, policymakers should include essential hospital priorities in the final reconciliation legislative package.

Essential hospitals continue to experience increased costs and fewer resources, including staffing, due to the pandemic. We call on Congress to address various priorities to ensure our members remain able to carry out their mission to serve people who face social and financial barriers to care.

The 340B Drug Pricing Program is key to the patchwork of federal support essential hospitals rely on to fulfill their safety net mission but current and future threats to the program could hinder hospital's ability to provide lifesaving services.

Essential hospitals rely heavily on a patchwork of federal financial support and resources to meet their mission. Congress must bolster the individual components that form the fabric of the health care safety net.

Essential hospitals lead the nation in the battle against COVID-19 but new challenges—including COVID variants, vaccination distribution management, and long-term hospitalizations—show more help is needed to ensure providers on the front lines can maintain access to care.

Unless Congress acts by December 11, Medicaid DSH funding will be cut by $4 billion—a third of all program funding—while COVID-19 continues to spread and impact patients and communities served by essential hospitals.

The proposed Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Regulation would sharply curtail flexibility states now have to finance and structure Medicaid to serve vulnerable people. Congress must step in immediately and demand that CMS withdraw this damaging rule in its entirety.

Essential hospitals tackle social determinants of health while operating with limited means. Congress must act to preserve the federal support essential hospitals rely on to fulfill their mission of care for all and keep communities healthy.

Medicaid DSH funding will suffer a $4 billion cut October 1 to help pay for a coverage expansion that has yet to occur. We urge Congress to act now and stop this devastating cut.

For more than 25 years 340B has been a shield against soaring drug prices. We ask Congress to leave the 340B program out of the drug pricing debate.

House and Senate members on both sides of the aisle say they intend to examine the practice of balance billing, which media have characterized as “surprise bills” in recent reports.