Review - S 4054 Introduced -Health Care Cybersecurity

Earlier this month, Sen Warner (D,VA) introduced S 4054, the Health Care Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2024. The bill would prohibit accelerated Medicare payments to hospitals and medical service providers with significant cashflow problems due to cyber-attacks unless they meet ‘minimum cybersecurity standards’. There is no new funding provided in this legislation.

Moving Forward

Warner is a member of the Senate Finance Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there would be Republican opposition to this bill because it would effectively add cybersecurity regulations for the medical sector. I am not sure that there would be sufficient support to see this bill favorably considered. Regardless, this bill would have no chance of being considered by the full Senate under regular order.

Commentary

While there is no mention of cybersecurity regulations in this bill, nor any mandate to develop such regulations, the phrase “meets minimum cybersecurity standards, as determined by the Secretary” effectively means that HHS would need to have regulations in place that define ‘minimum cybersecurity standards’ that the Secretary would use to restrict accelerated payments under these provisions. If the bill had specifically required HHS to promulgate such regulations, the bill would have come under the purview of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where Warner is not a member.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4054-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 3-22-24

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session and preparing to leave Washington for their two-week Easter recess, 65 bills were introduced. Three of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

H Res 1102 Providing for the concurrence by the House in the Senate amendment to H.R. 2882, with an amendment. Granger, Kay [Rep.-R-TX-12]

H Res 1103 Declaring the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant. Greene, Marjorie Taylor [Rep.-R-GA-14]

S 4054 A bill to require entities to meet minimum cybersecurity standards to be eligible for Medicare accelerated and advance payment programs if the reason for the need for such payments is due to a cybersecurity incident. Warner, Mark R. [Sen.-D-VA]

As I reported last night, the House adopted H Res 1102 yesterday afternoon, which sent HR 2882 back to the Senate with an amendment consisting of the text of H Res 1102. The Senate subsequently took up that amendment and adopted it early this morning, providing for funding of the remaining portions of the Federal Government through the end of the fiscal year (more on those deliberations in a subsequent post).

H Res 1103 was not offered as a ‘privileged resolution’ so immediate (2 legislative days) action by the House is not required. There is an interesting article over on Politico.com about this resolution.

Mention in Passing

I would like to mention in passing S 4064, a bill to amend section 50905 of title 51, United States Code, to extend and modify provisions relating to license applications and requirements for commercial space launch activities, and for other purposes. This will have some sort of effect on the current exception from FAA general flight safety regulations for commercial space flight. I would expect that this bill would require some sort of transition to ‘normal’ space flight safety requirements.