Health Care
When it comes to health care, Texans deserve lower costs, better coverage, and greater access. The status quo is unacceptable. Premiums have skyrocketed, coverage options have disappeared, and small businesses have struggled under crushing taxes and mandates. Texas families need more options, not less, so that they can pick the plan that's right for them.
From introducing bills to lower prescription drug prices to supporting efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, I have fought in the Senate for everyday Texans worried that an unexpected hospital stay, medical bill, or charge at the pharmacy counter could put a strain on their finances or send them into bankruptcy. By taking decision-making out of the hands of Washington bureaucrats and giving it to states, doctors, and patients, Congress can provide Texans with a health care system that fits their needs.
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Senator Cornyn's Legislative Efforts
- Cosponsored the Connecting Our Medical Providers with Links to Expand Tailored and Effective (COMPLETE) Care Act, which would improve access to timely, effective mental health care in the primary care setting by helping providers with the cost of implementing integrated care models.
- Cosponsored the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, which would provide greater oversight and transparency for institutional youth treatment programs and promote best practices for identifying and preventing institutional child abuse.
- Introduced the bipartisan Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act, which would lower prescription drug costs and help prevent drug companies from deliberately abusing the patent system by curbing the pharmaceutical drug industry’s anti-competitive behaviors of ‘product hopping’ and ‘patent thicketing’ that restrict access to generic and biosimilar drugs.
- Introduced the Increasing Access to Biosimilars Act, a bipartisan bill to address the high cost of prescription drugs for seniors by promoting competition, increasing access to biosimilar medications, and encouraging physicians to prescribe biosimilars with lower out-of-pocket costs.
- Supported an amendment to provide affordable insulin for uninsured patients at federally qualified health centers.
- Introduced the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, now law, which provided resources to states to implement crisis intervention court programs, which could include mental health courts, drug courts, Veterans’ Courts, and Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs. It also expanded the community behavioral health center model nationwide and made major investments to increase access to mental health and suicide prevention programs and other support services available in the community, including crisis and trauma intervention. Learn more HERE.
- Introduced the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Reauthorization Act, now law, which reauthorizes critical grants for mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and other programs that aid law enforcement and assist individuals experiencing mental health crises.
- Sponsored the Substance Abuse Prevention Act, now law, to reauthorize critical programs to reduce demand for narcotics, provide assistance to various agencies so they can better combat opioid addiction, and support those recovering from substance use disorders.
- Introduced the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act, provisions of which are now law as part of the 21st Century CURES Act, to improve our mental health system and ensure the mentally ill in our criminal justice system are identified and receive the treatment they need.
- Introduced the Second Look at Drug Patents Act, bipartisan legislation to improve the process for challenging sham drug patents which can block cheaper generic drugs from being available to patients and families.
- Enacted the Protecting Seniors’ Access to Medicare Act, a bill that repealed the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), created by Obamacare, in its entirety. IPAB created a new panel of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to determine care for American seniors.
- Co-founded the Senate Community Health Centers Caucus to support and promote policies that preserve and expand access to primary health care for the growing number of underserved and uninsured Americans who rely on our nation’s community health centers, which provide high-quality care, save taxpayer money, and foster community leadership.
- Led the effort to push the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to renew the Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Program 1115 Waiver. The 1115 Waiver is a partnership between the State, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and more than 300 local health care providers that is redesigning the delivery of health care in Texas to make it more efficient and effective.
- Sponsored the Medicare Prescription Drug Fraud Prevention Act to ensure Medicare prescription drug plans report waste, fraud, and abuse and take appropriate corrective actions.
- Sponsored the Prescription Drug Price Reporting Act, which would provide greater transparency by requiring pharmaceutical companies to report drug prices and to notify the Secretary of Health and Human Services before any price increases.
- Sponsored the Fair AMP Act, which prevents prescription drug companies from using authorized generics to charge Medicaid higher prices for their brand name products.
- Sponsored the Independence at Home Act, which brings Independence at Home (IAH) into the Medicare program nationwide, the logical next step in Congress’ efforts to improve quality of care, eliminate inefficiencies in care delivery, and promote patient dignity for our nation’s Medicare seniors.