Healthcare’s Financial Leaders Pledge Unprecedented Collaboration to Address America’s Healthcare Affordability Crisis
‘Declaration on Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability’ offers a results-oriented roadmap toward innovative,
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CHICAGO, Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) is calling on financial leaders across sectors to sign a Declaration on Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability, which commits to an actionable, consumer-centered approach to the inseparable challenges of ensuring affordable healthcare while keeping hospitals and health systems sustainable.
The Declaration states that different healthcare sectors must stop blaming each other for rising costs and work together to solve these challenges in innovative ways.
HFMA launched its Vitalic Health initiative earlier this year to work collaboratively with new and diverse partners to move beyond finger pointing, facilitate thoughtful dialogue, end cost shifting in the guise of cost reduction and lower healthcare costs without reducing access to services so patients can get the care they need when they need it.
“For too long, healthcare stakeholders have accepted a healthcare system that is unsustainable and no longer provides adequate financial security for patients, while burdening employers and taxpayers with exorbitant healthcare costs,” said C. Ann Jordan, JD, president and chief executive officer of HFMA. “The affordability problem is already well defined. What matters now is action, accountability and results.”
HFMA is calling on healthcare finance leaders and stakeholders across the broader healthcare ecosystem – including providers, payers, fintech executives, employers and purchasers – to endorse the Declaration and join the advancement of solutions.
Vitalic Health initiative is driving collaborative decision making and accountability
The Vitalic Health initiative will convene financial leaders across healthcare and other sectors to challenge assumptions, share data, test solutions and measure results. It will prioritize the use of the latest data to guide decisions and use innovative technology-aided approaches to reduce costs and complexity without compromising patients’ access to quality healthcare.
“Through new partners, ideas, innovations, and ultimately with accountability to patients, employers and taxpayers, our efforts will be squarely aimed at real progress on affordability,” said Matthew E. Cox, FHFMA, CPA, HFMA’s national board chair and executive vice president and chief financial officer of Corewell Health. “HFMA’s Vitalic Health initiative will ensure that collaboration helps solve healthcare problems long deemed unsolvable.”
Poll shows voters want affordability solutions that maintain their access to healthcare
HFMA’s Declaration comes as healthcare affordability remains a central issue ahead of the mid-term congressional elections. A Morning Consult poll of U.S. voters commissioned by HFMA last month showed 54% of U.S. voters say healthcare has become less affordable this year – with 61% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats indicating affordability will affect their vote.
Affordability isn’t voters’ only concern. A majority (57%) said they were concerned about hospitals closing, underscoring that efforts to make healthcare affordable must also make hospitals and other healthcare providers more sustainable so care is available for patients. Nearly two out of three voters (62%) said healthcare financial leaders working across sectors could help lower costs and keep at-risk hospitals solvent.
For more information or to endorse the “Declaration on Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability,” visit www.hfma.org/vitalichealth.
About HFMA
The Healthcare Financial Management Association equips its more than 150,000 members to navigate a complex healthcare landscape. Finance professionals in the full range of work settings, including hospitals, health systems, physician practices and health plans, trust HFMA to provide the guidance and tools to help them lead their organizations, and the industry, forward. HFMA is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that advances healthcare by collaborating with other key stakeholders to address industry challenges and providing guidance, education, practical tools and solutions, and thought leadership. We lead the financial management of healthcare.
About HFMA’s Vitalic Health initiative
HFMA’s Vitalic Health initiative strives to advance financial sustainability and better health outcomes in U.S. healthcare. It facilitates solve-based convening among leading industry stakeholders to boldly address the complexities of lowering health expenditure and increasing health and life span to improve the vitality of our communities.
Press inquiries should be directed to:
Brad Dennison
Healthcare Financial Management Association
(708) 492-3385
bdennison@hfma.org
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