Lawmakers emphasize prioritizing patients’ needs in health care policy
By The Hill, on February 18, 2021
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Thursday said focusing on patients’ needs should play a bigger role in driving conversations on improving health care.
Speaking at The Hill’s “Prioritizing the Patient,” Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) said the key to ensuring equitable health care to consumers is increasing transparency so that Americans are aware of the prices and quality care they will receive in advance.
Bucshon, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, told The Hill’s Steve Clemons that hearing from providers can also help make the health care system more patient-focused.
“More of the focus needs to go back on the patient, No. 1 … but also get back to more input from the provider level for operational controlling, what works and what doesn’t,” he said at the event, sponsored by Consumers for Quality Care.
Bucshon and Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) last month introduced the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act, which would boost information-sharing among states and the federal government, as well as public and private health care providers. The bill has not been taken up yet by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
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