The American Hospital Association urged the Trump administration to find alternatives to tariffs that will affect healthcare, particularly tariffs on medical equipment and products imported from China.
The Chinese tariffs will increase the cost of medical equipment and supplies for hospitals by $160 million annually, according to the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management, which is part of AHA. On top of that, steel tariffs are also likely to drive up healthcare costs, according to the AHA.
"The imposition of these tariffs will increase the cost of providing healthcare to all Americans, hitting vulnerable communities, such as rural communities that can least afford higher costs, especially hard," AHA wrote in a Nov. 5 letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
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