Healthcare accessibility and affordability is a top domestic policy concern for voters, outpacing worries over the economy and inflation, which have held the No. 1 spot in recent years. 

Nearly 85% of Americans said in a Gallup poll published at the end of March that they are at least somewhat worried about healthcare expenses. More than 6 in 10 people said they worry “a great deal.” 

A different Gallup poll from March found that 1 in 3 adults used one or more cost-defraying techniques to obtain healthcare, such as rationing doses of prescriptions, borrowing money, or skipping meals to afford care.

Wyden and Sanders wrote to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), requesting hearings to address the “fundamentally broken” healthcare system. 

The Democrats’ request also follows insurance company executives and other leaders in the healthcare economy testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this spring to answer similar questions. 

“The American public deserves to know why the big insurance executives that testified before the House earlier this year continue to get richer and richer, while over one-third of people with health insurance have been forced to skip or delay getting the care they need because of the outrageous cost,” Sanders and Wyden wrote.

Affordability of insurance premiums and quality of coverage in particular have been critical issues for both parties in recent months following the historic 43-day government shutdown this fall over enhanced premium subsidies for Obamacare individual marketplace plans. 

Republicans successfully blocked the renewal of the enhanced premium subsidies, which expired on Jan. 1, in part by arguing that the subsidies acted as a handout for big insurance. They could not strike a deal with Democrats on their alternative plan of giving subsidies directly to patient enrollees in the form of health savings accounts. 

Sanders and Wyden note in their letter that three of the largest health insurance providers, UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, and CVS/Aetna, have made billions in profits in recent years as expenses for average Americans continue to increase. 

UnitedHealth Group spent $13.5 billion on stock buybacks and made $19 billion in profit in 2024, according to the senators. Cigna, meanwhile, spent $5 billion on stock buybacks, generating $8 billion in profit and compensating its CEO with a $51 million package. 

Similarly, CVS/Aetna’s CEO received a $23.4 million compensation package in 2024 after the company made $14.4 billion in profits and spent $3.4 billion on stock buybacks.

The two Democrats also wrote that vertical integration, with health insurance companies partnering with or outright owning other players in the supply chain, such as hospitals and pharmacies, has hindered access to patient care and driven up costs. 

Wyden and Sanders wrote that insurance companies have “exploited every possible loophole to continue growing their profits” and buy out other actors in the healthcare industry “to squeeze every dollar out of every patient and every health care transaction.”

SENATE DEMOCRATS LAY GROUNDWORK FOR HEALTHCARE REFORMS IF THEY GET GOVERNING TRIFECTA

Top executives for all three companies testified before the Republican-led House committee in January, during which both Democrats and Republicans expressed a desire to break up vertically integrated insurance companies. 

“It is time for our committees to hold the chief executives of the major health insurance companies accountable for their greed and to address the health care crisis in America, as our colleagues in the House did earlier this year on a bipartisan basis,” Wyden and Sanders wrote.