CHA Statement on Senate Passage of Medicare Sequester Relief Legislation

WASHINGTON, DC — Children's Hospital Association (CHA) supports the recent bipartisan congressional action taken in the Senate and earlier in the House to prevent statutory Medicare payment cuts from taking effect next year. The approved legislation removes the uncertainty that cuts would have created for health care providers serving adult patients in the Medicare program, and we urge President Biden to sign the bill into law.

While Congress continues to provide financial support to the nation's hospital systems focused on the care of adults, pediatric providers and children's hospitals operating outside of adult systems of care don't receive these Medicare supports totaling billions of dollars in pandemic related financial relief. Children's hospitals face the same operating challenges as hospitals focused on adults, and have taken substantial financial losses due to the pandemic. This includes caring for the continuing surge of children with mental health and respiratory crises, including COVID-19, while bearing the same financial pressures of higher staffing and supply costs. These children's hospitals are safety net institutions for all children, and heavily reliant on Medicaid, which represents over half of the children cared for in children's hospitals.

As the United States continues to provide pandemic financial support to the hospitals caring for adults in the Medicare program, we ask the nation's children's hospitals and the millions of children in their care not be inadvertently overlooked. We look forward to working with leadership in Congress and the Biden administration to ensure pediatric providers are included in federal financial relief as we together work through this pandemic crisis.