{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://spartz.house.gov/media/press-releases/spartz-introduces-healthcare-bills-improve-hospital-competition", "Spartz Introduces Healthcare Bills to Improve Hospital Competition", "2022-06-16", "2022", "2022-06", "Republican", "House", "IN", "Victoria Spartz", "S000929", "spartz.house.gov", "spartz", "https://spartz.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (IN-05) introduced several healthcare bills to improve hospital competition and healthcare value.\n\n\u201cThe current hospital price situation is unacceptable and unsustainable,\u201d said Rep. Spartz. \u201cWe, as a government, created this powerful monopoly problem, and now owe it to the American people to fix it.\u201d\n\nBased on RAND studies performed by the Employers\u2019 Forum of Indiana, Indiana has some of the highest prices of healthcare in the nation and significant hospital market consolidation.\n\nThese first seven bills are part of a package aiming to address material hospital monopoly issue, which: 1.) repeal Obamacare prohibitions on physician-owned hospitals; 2.) improve oversight of anticompetitive behaviors of non-profit hospitals; 3.) require transparency and eliminate abuses in hospital billing; 4.) provide more patient choice; 5.) improve competition on state healthcare markets; 6.) assess anticompetitive clauses in healthcare contracts; and 7.) improve availability of medical residency programs.\n\nRep. Spartz is working to introduce additional bills later this month to improve transparency of non-profit hospital reporting and associations.\n\n\u201cCongresswoman Spartz is leading the fight to lower health costs and put money back into the pockets of hard-working Americans with her legislation. To further promote competition, Congress should adopt these bills to set the right conditions for market rivalries. The result could be electric, reducing the price of medical services, and lowering premiums significantly,\u201d said Joel White, President of Council for Affordable Health Coverage.\n\n\u201cFor over 30 years, NFIB small business owners have identified the cost of health insurance as the number one, long-term small business problem. We appreciate Representative Spartz\u2019s work to address underlying cost drivers of health insurance and increase healthcare competition. We look forward to continuing to work with her on this important effort.\u201d said Mitch Relfe, Manager of Federal Health Policy, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).\n\n\u201cERIC applauds Congresswoman Spartz for tackling anti-competitive practices so that workers, retirees, and their families will not have to pay artificially high \u201chospital\u201d rates for visits to physician offices. We are encouraged that this site-neutral approach will focus medical billing practices on the location of care, and not on who owns the physician\u2019s practice\u201d said Annette Guarisco Fildes, CEO of The ERISA Industry Committee\n\n\u201cHealth coverage is extremely important for working Americans as they face high health care costs. The Partnership for Employer-Sponsored Coverage (P4ESC) commends Rep. Spartz for introducing extensive reforms to help make hospital and hospital-linked care more affordable for employees and their families,\u201d said Neil Trautwein, P4ESC Executive Director.\n\nRep. Spartz sits on the Republican Study Committee\u2019s Health Care Task force. The bills introduced will reinforce efforts to address hospital consolidation, as recommended by the RSC in its 2018 Framework for Personalized, Affordable Care.\n\nBelow are links to the full texts of the bills mentioned above. For more information, please visit Spartz.House.Gov.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T02:39:01Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://spartz.house.gov/media/press-releases/spartz-introduces-healthcare-bills-improve-hospital-competition"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3154437765479088, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}