AHA chair speaks at Politico Health Care Summit

Photo: Craig Hudson for POLITICO

Marc Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist and 2026 AHA board chair, spoke April 21 at POLITICO’s Health Care Summit about health care affordability. The summit brought together policymakers, industry leaders and experts to discuss health care in the U.S. Boom explained obstacles hospitals are facing since the passage of the budget reconciliation bill last year. “We’re watching people lose coverage,” Boom said. “And, well, when you lose coverage … guess what happens? Those patients don’t stop getting sick. They just come to our emergency rooms, and they get care when they're much sicker than they would have been had we actually had a longitudinal health care process for them to care for them.”

Boom also discussed the need to eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens and waste in the health care system that take clinicians away from patient care and add costs.