Medicaid Primary Care Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, the Medicaid Primary Care Improvement Act.

I thank both the chair and the ranking member for their support. I also thank Representative Schrier for being such an excellent co-lead and advocate; and Representatives Smucker, Blumenauer, and Pettersen, who continue to also champion direct primary care.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of attention gets paid to the Members who come down here and raise their voices and scream and yell about all the things they are really mad at because they want the public to know how mad they are. Every once in a while, we can raise our voices and wave our arms for some good things that we all work on together just to improve people's healthcare.

This bill is just that. It is a first step for addressing one of the most important issues in healthcare, which is access. We can promise people health insurance, and we can add more money to it, but it doesn't necessarily translate into actual access to a provider.

Direct primary care is one of the easiest and most direct ways to deliver primary care to patients. It is a payment model that makes sense to patients because it is simple. It is unlimited access to primary care providers by paying a monthly fee. It is a win-win for both patients and doctors because it simplifies and guarantees that relationship.

It keeps patients out of costly emergency rooms. It saves money for the entire healthcare system. It encourages more efficient preventative medicine, as well. This means treating prediabetes before it becomes diabetes. This means treating heart issues before they become heart disease.

The market has already created direct primary care, and it is a model that actually thrives in districts like mine, where we have doctors like my friend, Dr. Glenn Davis, whose direct primary care practice saves businesses lots of money on their premium payments and also delivers quality care to patients, but, as usual, the government has not caught up.

This bill removes the uncertainty about whether Medicaid can pay for direct primary care access and empowers States with the necessary guidance to provide direct primary care for vulnerable patients who need it most.

It is a game changer because many Medicaid patients aren't accessing primary care right now. They are more likely to show up at an ER than schedule regular visits with a primary care physician, and ER costs keep going up because too many people are not getting the preventative care that they need.

Why? Well, because the truth is a lot of primary care doctors simply can't serve Medicaid patients due to low reimbursement rates. If we allow States to tailor their Medicare programs for direct primary care, which this bill does, we can fundamentally change this dynamic.

Our legislation is straightforward, and it has zero cost. It clarifies that current laws don't prohibit direct primary care arrangements while offering guidance for States that want to use direct primary care in their Medicaid programs, just like my home State of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I genuinely hope that we can push this forward in a truly bipartisan way.

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