Health Care

U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced bipartisan legislation to prevent Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) from owning pharmacies and driving up prescription drug costs for their own benefit.  “The insurance monopolies are ruining American health care. Patients and independent pharmacies are paying the price. This legislation will stop the insurance companies and PBMs from gobbling up even more of American health care and charging American families more and more for...

Today, U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Elevance CEO Gail Koziara Boudreaux calling for answers regarding a recent policy change, in states including Missouri and Connecticut, that denies coverage for anesthesia care if a surgery or procedure exceeds specific time limits pre-determined by the health insurance provider. Anthem, a subsidiary of Elevance, rolled out the new policy earlier this year before public outcry forced them...

Today U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced a bill to reauthorize the Supporting and Treating Officers in Crisis (STOIC) Act, which provides grant funding for law enforcement family-support services and establishes suicide-prevention programs and mental health services for law enforcement officers.  The senators first introduced the STOIC Act in 2019, and it was signed into law later that year. Without action, the...

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who serves as Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote a letter to the CEO of UnitedHealth Group (UHG) following its disastrous data breach by ransomware group BlackCat in February.  The senators seek answers as to “how its critical health care systems were breached, why the firm suffered such an egregious and unexplained outage, and whether patient and...

Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter demanding that Washington University in St. Louis and BJC Healthcare conduct a fresh evaluation of the practices at The Washington University Transgender Center. Recent reporting from the New York Times validated claims made by Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the Center, that the Center commenced experimental treatments on hundreds of minors and lacked appropriate safeguards. "As...

Today U.S. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) sent a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra demanding a full accounting of every federal dollar that has been provided to The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital (“the Center”) since its inception. "Recently, a whistleblower who was formerly employed at the Center alleged in a sworn affidavit that the Center may have committed...