The data is in. The hospitals that were banned in 2010 deliver better care at prices 33% lower. The hospital lobby is fighting to keep them illegal.
EARLIER TODAY, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing on “lowering healthcare costs.”
The script got flipped. Instead of yelling at insurance executives, Rep. Morgan Griffith pointed at a ghost: Section 6001 of the Affordable Care Act.
Section 6001 banned new physician-owned hospitals from participating in Medicare and froze the 250 existing ones in place. They cannot expand. They cannot add beds. They cannot grow.
The official story in 2010: these hospitals would cherry-pick wealthy patients, drive up costs, and gut community hospitals.
The receipts in 2026:
A 2023 study in JAMA Network Open found that physician-owned hospitals charge 33% lower prices for the same procedures. $989 for an MRI versus $1,476. Better quality scores. Lower complication rates. The prediction was backward.
Meanwhile, 182 rural hospitals have closed since the ban took effect. Section 6001 makes it illegal for physicians to step in and save them. The law says it is better for a town to have no hospital than a doctor-owned one.
H.R. 2191 proposes a modest carve-out: allow physician-owned hospitals in rural areas, but only if they are 35 miles from any existing facility.
The American Hospital Association opposes even this. Not because of competition. Because a working proof-of-concept in rural Texas undermines the narrative that keeps physician-owned hospitals illegal in Chicago and New York.
The AMA has flipped. In 2010, they let Section 6001 pass. In 2026, they are tweeting support for H.R. 2191. The independent practice of medicine is dying under consolidation, and they finally noticed.
The ban was never about safety.
It was never about quality.
It was about market protection.
You are paying the bill.
CALL TO ACTION
The hospital lobby spends $1.5 million per day to keep physician-owned hospitals illegal. They aren’t doing that because these hospitals are dangerous. They’re doing it because these hospitals are 33% cheaper.
You don’t have to call your congressman.
You don’t have to write a letter.
You just have to remember this the next time someone tells you healthcare costs are “complicated.” They aren’t.
The cheaper option is illegal.
That’s the whole story.
TOMORROW TEASE
Tomorrow on The Rojas Report: The full deep dive into H.R. 2191. The legislative text. The loopholes. The 35-mile buffer zone. Who wrote it, who’s fighting it, and what it means if it passes.
11:30 am Eastern.
-Rojas out.
