No Surprises Act

from National Family Voices:

Surprise Medical Bills

As with prescription drug prices, lawmakers seem serious about protecting consumers from surprise medical bills, but there are different approaches to doing so. In both the House and Senate, bipartisan bills have been reported out of relevant committees. In the Senate, the Lower Health Care Costs Act (S. 1895) was sponsored by Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA). In the House, the No Surprises Act (H.R. 3630) was sponsored by House Energy & Commerce (E&C) Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR). See Pallone-Walden press release. As explained in a blog post from the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Senate bill would essentially tie out-of-network charges to a federal benchmark of median in-network rates for a geographic area. The House bill would use that method with back-up arbitration between insurers and providers. But hospitals and doctors prefer an arbitration-only approach. (It has been discovered that unidentified television ads have been funded by private equity firms that own physician groups that contract with hospitals for ER and other services.) Two other committees also have jurisdiction in the House - the Ways & Means Committee and the Education & Labor Committee. The latter has postponed a tentative meeting due to divisions among its members about which approach to take. See House Panel Delays Vote on Surprise Medical Bills Legislation (The Hill, 9/17/19).