WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) failure to implement the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act according to congressional intent. The bipartisan, Grassley-led law is intended to bring transparent competition to the nation’s organ donation system.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) joined Grassley on the Senate floor to echo his calls for strict adherence to congressional intent.
Of Grassley’s work, Moran said, “The only pleasure I take in today’s conversation on the Senate floor is that I’m alive with Senator Grassley, the senior senator from Iowa, who is one of the most effective members of this body in our country’s history.
“And he has been an advocate, and we successfully worked together, along with a number of our colleagues – Republicans and Democrats – to reform this corrupt system. And I join my colleague, Senator Grassley, in voicing serious concerns regarding the way [HRSA] is implementing this piece of legislation.”
Video and a transcript of Grassley’s remarks as delivered follow. A full statement of his remarks as submitted to the congressional record can be found HERE.
Madame President,
The organ transplant business and network has been in shambles for decades, and people have needlessly died because of it. We have passed very good legislation unanimously to correct it.
I come to the floor today with serious concerns about the Biden administration’s implementation of H.R. 2544, the “Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act.”
I’m joined by a colleague who’s worked real hard on this, Senator Moran of Kansas, who will also give his views on this issue. He’s worked with me and championed this very important issue.
On September 22 of this year, this legislation, H.R. 2544, was signed into law by President Biden.
In less than three months, the Health Resources and Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services is already ignoring congressional intent while asking Congress for money to implement the law, presumably contrary to what the legislation requires.
I’m proud to have been a cosponsor of this very importantbipartisan piece of legislation.
We fought alongside patient organizations that knew this whole set-up, for decades, was not working the way it should. We did this with the hope and expectation that we’d have real competition to manage our organ donation system.
Congress unanimously passed the bill, as I said before, and we were able to do it without attempts by people within the 40 year-old organizationthat tried to kill it with, what we call around here,“poison pill” amendments. And that point is very important, because we didn’t adopt any of those amendments.
And yet we see some of those approaches being now promoted by this administration on the implementation of this bill.
Because these potential “poison-pill” amendments would’ve prevented competition in our organ donation system and we felt that competition was what we needed, instead of the monopolistic approaches that had existed for decades.
Those amendments were pushed by the same non-profit monopolies that have called the shots in our nation’s failed organ donation system for the last 40 years.
So here we are, within just three short months after the passing of what we thought was real reform,the Health Resources and Services Administration of HHS, led by Administrator Carole Johnson, has attempted to restrict competition right out of the gate by inserting – via the contracting process – the very “poison pills” that Congress kept out of the law.
For example, that agency announced plans to install the existing United Network for Organ Sharing board – theonethat’s been running the show – as a new so-called “independent” board.
Regarding limiting competition for the board contract, agency officials told my staff and staff from other congressional offices, that “the agency can place restrictions on any contracts, including the IT contract.”
Again, the purpose of this legislationis to create competition, not stifle it with government restrictions and sweetheart deals.
My bipartisan oversight over the years has shown that the United Network for Organ Sharing’s IT system is failing at every level.
I’ve heard from patient groups and leaders with these very same concerns.
These patient advocacy organizations are rightfully concerned that HHS is caving to bad actors who’ve been running our nation’s organ donation system since 1986.
As the President of the Global Liver Institute wrote, “I never imagined that industry could so quickly dictate the terms of the law’s implementation.”
The National Kidney Foundation wrote that these proposals “continue to empower those who’ve been responsible for the problems that have plagued the transplant system.”
From what my staff has been told, Health Resources and Services Administration officials have threatened the very patient groups who wrote to me and other members of Congress.
The Health Resources and Services Administration allegedly told some of these patient groups to retract their letters of concern and that their letters were a lie.
All of this is unacceptable, and should be to 100 members of this body who passed this legislation unanimously.
I started working to fix our nation’s corrupt and broken organ donation system way back in 2005.
Since then, more than 200,000 Americans have needlessly died on the transplant waiting list — disproportionately people of color and people of rural America.
Patients and Congress fought for this legislation.
Now HHS, under this administration, needs to implement this law in the interest of patients.
Patients’ lives depend on it…
Maladministration by the organ network must stop. And looks to me like HHS wants to keep it going as it is and stand in the way of this important piece of legislation.
I yield the floor.
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