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2019-01-25 Home Front: Politix
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With Trump on board, Congress is in position to actually pass major healthcare legislation
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[Wash Examiner] Senators see a opening for legislation to eliminate unexpected massive medical bills after President Trump enthusiastically endorsed the idea this week, raising the possibility of bipartisan work on a topic marked in recent years by bitter divisiveness.
Key senators indicated on Thursday that they hope to work in the coming months across party lines and with Trump to address the problem of patients facing astonishingly high bills after being administered pricey medications or receiving care from doctors outside their networks. The lawmakers have been stymied in writing legislation related to other areas in healthcare, such as stabilizing Obamacare's exchanges or working to insure people who currently lack coverage.
"It will be a priority in our efforts to try to reduce healthcare costs," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "People go to the emergency room and they suddenly are surprised a few weeks later with a bill for $3,000 for an out-of-network doctor. We don't want that to happen to anyone."
Alexander has met with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to discuss the problem and said that he expected the Senate would address it in "the next several months."
He also met with the top Democrat on the HELP Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., of the Finance Committee. Lawmakers recognized that surprise medical bills were "an obvious candidate for that kind of bipartisan cooperation," he said.
Leading the charge on authoring bipartisan legislation is Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. A physician, Cassidy has frequently discussed the ways in which helping patients has influenced his policy positions.
During the last Congress, senators introduced a bipartisan draft legislation to tackle the issue. The plan would have barred doctors and hospitals from billing a patient for the remainder of a bill that the insurance company didn't pay when the patient was treated outside of his health insurance network and instead would have had the provider seek payment from the insurer. Another portion of the proposal would obligate hospitals to notify emergency department patients once they are stabilized that they may get high charges if the facility is outside of their network, giving them the option to get treatment elsewhere. 
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Posted by Besoeker 2019-01-25 02:37||
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Posted by trailing wife 2019-01-25 13:14||
2019-01-25 13:14||
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Posted by Beavis 2019-01-25 14:29||
2019-01-25 14:29||
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