WASHINGTON, DC (May 14, 2019): The Council for Affordable Health Coverage (CAHC) – a coalition of employers, insurers, life science companies, PBMs, brokers, agents, patient groups, and physician organizations – responded today to draft legislation to address surprise medical bills unveiled by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR).
CAHC President Joel White released the following statement:
“CAHC is pleased to see bipartisan cooperation to combat the injustice of surprise medical bills. The draft legislation unveiled today appears to take a strong step in the right direction by putting the consumer first. It also rejects harmful binding arbitration policies, which send patients to lawyers to resolve disputes and risks stifling access to treatment,” said CAHC President Joel White. “We welcome the fact that lawmakers are instead looking to market-based measures to resolve out-of-network payment disputes and we will work to keep these provisions in any final bill.”
White concluded, “CAHC maintains concerns, however, over the draft bill’s troubling endorsement of state all-payer claims databases, which impede transparency by offering different reporting standards from one state to the next. We look forward to working with the committee to identify solutions that achieve meaningful price transparency rather than propping up a maze of state databases with little demonstrable value.”
