Senate Special Committee on Aging Chair Rick Scott has asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to prioritize U.S.-made medical devices and pharmaceuticals, require domestic storage of patient data and exclude China-made equipment when a domestic alternative exists.
The October 2, 2026 letter to CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz is a policy request, not current CMS regulation.
Scott urged CMS to bar China-made medical devices and equipment from federal programs when domestic alternatives are available, require medical-device and service providers to store data domestically, and prevent Chinese manufacturers from benefiting from the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund.
The letter also cites a U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency advisory concerning a Contec Medical Systems patient monitor and raises concerns about biometric and health-data collection by China-linked wearable-device makers. Those surveillance and exfiltration concerns are claims in Scott’s letter unless independently established for a specific product.
What the letter would change
- It asks CMS to adopt procurement preferences and exclusions tied to country of manufacture and domestic availability.
- It calls for domestic storage requirements for patient data handled by medical-device and service providers.
- It seeks to exclude specified manufacturers from a new federal rural-health fund.
What it does not do
- It does not itself create an operative CMS rule.
- It does not establish that nationality alone proves a product-level security defect.
- It does not convert cited cyber-security concerns into findings about every China-made medical device.
Free China Movement’s assessment is that medical-device security should be governed by transparent technical evidence, enforceable data rules, resilient supply chains and procurement standards that distinguish documented risk from blanket inference.