Rep. Roy's Statement on H.R. 4040

Statement

Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21) released the following statement after votes Wednesday night:

Today, notwithstanding my strong support for telehealth, I voted no on H.R. 4040 because it fails to reform or legitimately pay for the expansion of these services under Medicare and will speed its looming insolvency. It has been estimated that Medicare will become insolvent by 2028 which will only hurt seniors and set us up for a massive fiscal catastrophe. We cannot afford to play games with special "temporary" (read: not actually temporary) expansions of programs for Medicare that increase Medicare spending and are only offset by other Medicare funds.

Telehealth is an important service and patients should be able to access their doctors remotely, but holding providers in limbo for two more years won't lead to technological investments by the healthcare industry, and rather just hold both patients and providers to the whims of politicians in DC. Congress needs to roll up their sleeves and find legitimate payfors for our spending, make proper decisions about reimbursement rates for telehealth services, actually make permanent our deregulatory efforts, and actually take the steps to make Medicare solvent.

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