Medicare Bill

Floor Speech

Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, last week, a news report revealed that a hospital in Houston, Texas, my home State, was unable to pay dozens of its employees during the holidays due to a new Medicare payment contractor. Nearly 150 employees, ranging from doctors to nurses to administrators, missed several paychecks because the hospital's Medicare payment facilitator is taking too long to process Medicare claims for reimbursement.

Unfortunately, this is a growing problem plaguing the medical facilities and hardworking employees across the country. That is why my bill, the Medicare Established Provider Act, should come to the House floor for a vote quickly.

H.R. 3168 will help alleviate the reimbursement backlog by creating a trusted provider system. Like this hospital in Texas, there are many established Medicare providers with a proven history of timely, valid claims. They should be rewarded with prompt reimbursements rather than put in limbo for months or years at a time.

Allowing this bill to pass would allow companies and small businesses to expand and would streamline the process for these trusted providers. As the backlog of claims continues to rise, the livelihood of employees and businesses should not be put at risk. I hope this bill will get serious attention and bring commonsense business principles to this industry.

In God we always trust.

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