Blunt & Moran Lead 14 GOP Senators in Demanding Biden Administration Reverse Its “Biased, Partial, and Unjust” National Liver Distribution Policy

WASHINGTON- Today, U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) released a letter they sent to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra urging him to reverse the administration's flawed national liver distribution policy, which is disproportionately harmful to patients in Midwest and Southern states. In addition to Blunt and Moran, the letter is signed by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and U.S. Senators Richard Shelby (Ala.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), John Boozman (Ark.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Roger Wicker (Miss.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Todd Young (Ind.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), and Tom Cotton (Ark.).

"For many years, Members of the Senate have expressed serious concerns about the Department of Health and Human Services' contractor-driven organ allocation policy. These concerns have included issues with the Department ceding control to a contractor to determine all organ allocation decisions; limited oversight by the Department of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) policymaking process, run by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS); the UNOS Board's orchestrated overruling of their expert Liver and Intestine Committee's recommendations; and the Board's failure to include all public comments in its consideration," the senators wrote.

In the letter, the senators reference recently releasedemails that show a pattern of collusion between UNOS, a New England-area organ procurement organization, and others prior to the changes in the liver allocation policy being announced. The emails further include profane and disparaging comments about people living in the South, demonstrating a clear bias against these areas in the policymaking process.

The senators continued, "Mr. Secretary, these emails show, without a shadow of a doubt, that the liver allocation decision was fundamentally flawed, and the body charged with carrying it out is systematically broken. In particular, the adoption of the allocation policy for livers has been fraught with inconsistency, a lack of transparency, and clear violations by UNOS in determining the policy. Yet, in every instance that these concerns have been brought to the Department, they have been disregarded. It is time for the Department to reverse this biased, partial, and unjust allocation policy."

To read the letter, click here.

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