Protect Employer Coverage and Expand Options for Workers
CAHC advocates for employer-sponsored coverage and works to expand flexibility in benefit design and options.
Oppose Government Interference in Employer Coverage:
CAHC is opposed to efforts, including Medicare for All or tax increases on employee benefits, which undermine employer-sponsored coverage.
Reform and Expand Health Savings Accounts (HSA):
CAHC supports creating new HSAs to recognize changes in the workforce that have created new types of businesses and contract employees. Specifically:
- Decoupling the HSA from the high deductible health plan requirement
- Allowing premiums to be paid out of the account
- Creating new gig worker HSAs that don’t require reclassification as an employee
- Permitting direct primary care payments to be paid out of the HSA
- New HSA options for low-income people
Expand Choice:
CAHC supports new pathways to care, including telehealth licensure reform and expanded incentives to offer preventive and wellness benefits.
Expand Support for Small Business Health Coverage
CAHC supports efforts to expand options and incentives for small businesses to offer their workers coverage.
Expand Financial Incentives to Offer Coverage:
Reform the Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit by expanding eligibility for the existing credit, removing the wage cap, and allowing the credit to be used for all major medical plans. And, create a fixed-dollar tax credit for workers to help them afford out-of-pocket costs and premiums.
Expand Small Business Options:
Expand and make permanent Association Health Plans to allow small businesses to band together to negotiate lower costs and codify individual coverage Health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) to help businesses provide financial support to their employees. Allow businesses of all sizes to access insurance plans that limit their risk, such as reinsurance and level-funded plans.
Lower the Cost of Medical Services
CAHC supports policies that lower the cost of health services, primarily through incentives to deliver high-value care and to pay for services based on their cost, not the setting in which they are delivered.
Site-Neutral Payments:
Adopt site-neutral payment policies to ensure all taxpayers and beneficiaries, including Medicare, pay the same rate for the same service regardless of the setting.
Expand the Workforce:
Allow Medicare patients to access lower-cost healthcare providers by recognizing nurse practitioners, advanced practice nurses, and pharmacists for the services they are licensed to provide.
Eliminate Waste:
End payments for wasteful care that does not improve patient outcomes by first identifying the waste, and then refusing to pay. Realign incentives to identify and lower hospital-acquired conditions and infections with payments to encourage better outcomes.
Lower the Cost of Prescription Drugs
CAHC supports policies that eliminate price controls, produce transparency and accountability in the regulatory process, and expand value-based payments for drugs.
Pay for Value:
Allow payers and manufacturers to pay for drugs based on a patient’s outcome, not the number of treatments. Enact the MVP Act.
Inflation Reduction Act Implementation:
Implement the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in a way that does the least amount of damage. Work with Congress on implementation oversight and reforms, including:
- Promote Implementation Accountability – Require the law to be implemented through the normal rulemaking process to promote transparency, accountability, and stakeholder input.
- Expand Competition – Do not subject drugs to price controls if they have competition in the market.
- Support Innovation – Under the IRA, orphan products are exempt from price controls unless there is a secondary indication. Repeal the secondary indication provision to ensure more treatments for rare diseases.
Expand Market Competition and Consumer Transparency
CAHC supports increased oversight and enforcement of anti-competitive practices from regulators, new rules that end anti-competition practices, such as dishonest billing, and preventing consumers from accessing the lowest cost, best care options. We support point-of-care transparency on cost and quality across federal and state healthcare programs.
Ballot Tracker
Below is a list of bills CAHC is actively tracking. If you have any questions about a specific bill, please reach out to the team.
Nothing here.
H.R.2666 – Medicaid VBPs for Patients Act
Status Introduced in House (IH)
To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to codify value-based purchasing arrangements under the Medicaid program and reforms related to price reporting under such arrangements, and for other purposes.
Sponsors/Co-sponsors: Guthrie, Brett / Eshoo, Anna G. / Joyce, John / Auchincloss, Jake / Miller-Meeks, Mariannette / Peters, Scott H.
Date Introduced: 2023-04-18 (118th Congress)
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Last Updated: 2023-04-18H.R.3799 – CHOICE Arrangement Act
Status Engrossed in House (EH)
An Act To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for health reimbursement arrangements integrated with individual health insurance coverage.
Date Introduced: 2023-06-05 (118th Congress)
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Last Updated: 2023-06-21H.R.824 – Telehealth Benefit Expansion for Workers Act of 2023
Status Introduced in House (IH)
To amend title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat benefits for telehealth services offered under a group health plan or group health insurance coverage as excepted benefits.
Sponsors/Co-sponsors: Walberg, Tim / DelBene, Suzan K. / Craig, Angie / Estes, Ron / Sherrill, Mikie / Allen, Rick W.
Date Introduced: 2023-02-02 (118th Congress)
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Last Updated: 2023-02-02H.R.2868 – Association Health Plans Act
Status Reported in House (RH)
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to clarify the treatment of certain association health plans as employers, and for other purposes.
Sponsors/Co-sponsors: Walberg, Tim / Foxx, Virginia / Good, Bob / Allen, Rick W. / Crenshaw, Dan / Burgess, Michael C. / Thompson, Glenn / Dunn, Neal P.
Date Introduced: 2023-04-25 (118th Congress)
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Last Updated: 2023-06-14