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.

Recent policy changes have drained vital funding and threaten a financial crisis at essential hospitals. Without action by Congress, communities nationwide will lose access to care and vital support services.

Even with its long record of success, the 340B program still faces undue scrutiny, distorted and misleading claims, and demands for onerous new reporting.

"Site-neutral” payment policy jeopardizes access to care by making clinic expansion into our most underserved communities financially unsustainable.

By cutting reimbursement rates for Part B drugs to 340B hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would harm essential hospitals, which care for the nation’s poorest, most complex, and costliest patients.

America's Essential Hospitals asks Congress to postpone Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payment cuts until they can reach a sustainable solution.

Communities rely on essential hospitals for trauma and other lifesaving care, physician training, emergency response, and other vital services. Essential hospitals, in turn, rely on policymakers for support to keep these services available to all. Learn more about this careful balance.

As the Senate considers the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) of 2017, America’s Essential Hospitals and its more than 300 members urge lawmakers to protect low-income and other Americans who face financial challenges—and the hospitals on which they rely.

America's Essential Hospitals urges lawmakers to protect vulnerable people and the hospitals on which they depend as work to repeal the Affordable Care Act and reform entitlement programs progresses.

The BBA’s “site neutral” policy creates serious, unintended consequences for vulnerable people, and CMS rules do not provide enough flexibility.

The association is urging policymakers to pair any repeal of the Affordable Care Act with simultaneous passage of a comprehensive replacement.

America’s Essential Hospitals supports H.R. 5273, the Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act. Section 102 of the bill would help level the playing field for essential hospitals in Medicare's readmissions reduction program.

Proposed Medicaid managed care regulations effectively would end supplemental payments that have been in effect for at least a generation to many essential hospitals.

Essential hospitals rely on Medicare as a vital funding source for about a quarter of their patients. But funding shortfalls and regulatory changes that would further undermine the program put vulnerable patients at risk.

Proposed regulations would dramatically narrow access to 340B, harming vulnerable patients and putting entire communities at risk of losing vital services.

Formula for cuts seeks to direct funds to hospitals most in need, but relies on insufficient data. Congress should freeze Medicare DSH cuts and seek to better understand their impact on patients and hospitals.

Essential hospitals meet their commitment to vulnerable patients across regions and states with innovative technology.

Socioeconomic factors affect health and health care outcomes. Medicare's Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program must account for this to avoid unfairly penalizing hospitals that care for large volumes of vulnerable patients.

Despite improvements in health care access and quality, disparities in care persist. Learn about the challenges to reducing disparities and what essential hospital are doing to improve equity.