Trade Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I would like to address a small but important aspect of the hospital outpatient policy that is included in the budget agreement. The legislation does not address what happens to outpatient departments that are currently under construction. The bill allows current outpatient departments to continue to receive the Medicare outpatient payment rate because hospitals rely on those payments.

Hospitals that want to build new facilities in the future go in with ``eyes open'' because they know they will not receive the higher outpatient rate. But that is not the case for outpatient departments that are currently being constructed as we speak. These hospitals made the decision to build, understanding that these facilities would receive the outpatient rate--they had no idea that Congress would be voting on this policy as part of this bill at this exact time. Facilities under construction should be treated the same as current facilities. I think it is unfortunate that this was not addressed when the bill was drafted, and I hope my colleagues will join me in ensuring this issue is addressed, either through regulations or through a technical legislative fix.

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