CT GOP Senators: Hospital Consolidation Report Highlights need for Bipartisan Action

Sen. Republican Leader Stephen Harding, Sen. Heather Somers, Ranking Senator on the Public Health Committee, and Sen. Jeff Gordon, a member of the Public Health Committee and a medical doctor, released the following statement in response to the report released today by the Office of Health Strategy (OHS) that analyzes the impact of hospital and health care system consolidation in Connecticut from 2016 through 2021.

“The study confirms what we already know has been happening for some years. We have all seen, experienced, and heard from the people we represent: hospital consolidation in Connecticut has contributed to faster increases in health care costs. Consolidation is negatively impacting competition. This in turn limits access to care, particularly for patients and families who are uninsured, paying high out-of-pocket costs, or living in rural areas.

As policymakers, we must put a spotlight on this report and take action. We want our community hospitals to stay independent if possible or, if owned already by a large health care system, to stay open. We want to lower health care costs. We also want to protect the vital services, such as birthing centers behavioral health programs, that our community and rural hospitals provide. In the state legislature, we are spearheading collaborative work in a bipartisan way to better regulate hospitals in a common sense way and clearly instruct OHS on how it must focus on performing its core duties and do so in a transparent and timely manner.”