The life of a U.S. Representative is a busy one, constantly traveling from city to city in your state to traveling across the country to represent your constituents in Washington D.C. For Rep. John Curtis, this schedule is even more filled as he runs to fill the vacancy left in the Senate by departing Sen. Mitt Romney. Despite this Rep. Curtis has made a few appearances in Castle Country over the summer, including a retirement ceremony for a turbine from the Huntington Power Plant.
On Monday, Aug. 19, Curtis returned to Price, this time to tour Castleview Hospital. Over the summer, Castleview was named a top 100 rural and community hospital, as well as earning an “A” grade from the Leapfrog Group, a major advocate for transparency in health care who gives out letter grades for the quality of care a hospital provides.
Rep. Curtis spoke highly of the hospital, being quoted as saying,” I was so pleased to visit Price and the great staff at Castleview Hospital who are providing valuable care to rural Utahns. Castleview and other rural hospitals are vital, providing essential care in areas where medical services can take long hours to drive to. They are not just health care providers but lifelines for the communities they serve.”
Also speaking on the visit was Castleview Hospital CEO Greg Cook,“ The caregivers at Castleview Hospital very much appreciate Rep. Curtis taking the time to visit our hospital and learn about the great work we do every day. Rep. Curtis has been a champion for rural health care in the United States House of Representatives. We will continue working with Rep. Curtis and his team to ensure our region’s health care needs are met.”
Some of the healthcare-related legislation Curtis has been able to push is the Modernizing Therapeutic Equivalence Rating Determination Act, which aimed to increase the availability of generic drug treatments where he stated,” I hear frequently from Utahns about the challenges that high out-of-pocket costs create to accessing lifesaving prescription drugs. This bill helps to address this problem. I am proud of this bipartisan effort to speed up the approval process for generic drugs.”