WASHINGTON, DC — Today, bipartisan leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Health convened an historic and critically important hearing exploring the many structural barriers, regulatory deficiencies, distorted or non-existent incentive structures, and funding shortfalls that impede access to high quality kidney disease prevention and care for patients and the providers and innovators who serve them.  

The subcommittee heard moving testimony from a home hemodialysis patient, from leading nephrologists and researchers, and from prior KCP Chair John Butler, CEO of Akebia Therapeutics. 

“The subcommittee’s consensus was clear that the current system is broken, and does not work for patients,” said Colin Roskey, KCP’s Executive Director.

“Bipartisan bills to restore private insurance benefits to thousands of patients and their families threatened by a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, to systematically improve kidney disease education and prevention, to improve transplant access, appropriately incentivize new drug innovation through important changes to the duration and design of the Medicare ESRD Transitional Drug Add-on Payment Adjustment (TDAPA) and its parallel provision for devices, the Transitional Payment for New and Innovative Equipment and Supplies (TPNIES), and to improve access to home therapies were all discussed in what full Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) called the subcommittee’s “solemn and serious responsibility.'”

“KCP shares Chairman Smith’s solemn imperative that the system needs to be redesigned to bring innovation and the highest standard of care to all patients. KCP looks forward to working constructively with the subcommittee and individual bill sponsors to ensure the kidney care system in the U.S. is providing the highest quality innovative care to patients and protecting patient access to choice and coverage.”