Senate health committee leaders released bipartisan discussion draft legislation May 23 aimed at improving healthcare price transparency, ending surprise medical bills and lowering prescription medication costs, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Five things to know:
1. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R. Tenn., who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has been working on the legislation with the committee's ranking member, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
2. Under the Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019, patients would only be responsible for the in-network amount when they receive out-of-network emergency care or non-emergency care from out-of-network providers at in-network facilities.
3. The legislation offers three options to end surprise medical bills. These include a benchmark for the amount insurance companies would pay providers, as well as allowing the insurer or provider to initiate an arbitration process for surprise bills that are higher than $750.
4. The legislation also addresses provisions in payer-provider contracts. Under discussion draft, the contracts could not include language prohibiting private insurers from providing patients with pricing information, according to the WSJ. The publication states that the legislation also prohibits clauses in contracts that require an insurer to include all a health system's facilities in an agreement.
5. The discussion draft makes numerous suggestions for lowering drug prices, including requiring that discounts drugmakers offer to pharmacy benefit managers be passed on to patients, according to NPR.
Access the draft bill text here.
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