Federal spending bill could limit physician hospital ownership

A group of Republican Congress members are raising objections to language in a war supplemental spending bill that they say would harm physician-owned hospitals. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), along with Texas republican Reps. Sam Johnson and Joe Barton, object to an amendment that would prohibit new physician owned hospitals built after this coming September, while offering no protection for hospitals still under development as of that date. They're also unhappy about rules that would force hospitals to meet what they deem "extreme qualifications" to expand, rather than grow as they see fit. In a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the legislators call these provisions "a national certificate-of-need program... access to [which] would likely be denied to almost every physician-owned hospital."

To learn more about the legislators' challenge to physician-owned hospital regs:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece

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