Health Surprise Billing Congress Group Letter

The Honorable Mitch McConnell Majority Leader
U.S. Senate

The Honorable Chuck Schumer Minority Leader
U.S. Senate

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Kevin McCarthy Minority Leader
U.S. House of Representatives

Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader McCarthy:

As the nation responds to the twin emergencies of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn, we urge you to include comprehensive protections against surprise medical bills in the next relief package.

We appreciate current efforts to address the surprise billing problem, such as provisions in the HEROES Act (H.R. 6800) that build upon the Administration’s actions to prevent health care providers receiving CARES Act funding from sending surprise medical bills to patients. While these are helpful first steps, they still leave millions of families and employees at risk for bankrupting surprise medical bills as this crisis continues. As Congress works on the next COVID-19 relief bill, we hope you will include provisions to ensure all patients are protected from all surprise medical bills.

Specifically, we urge you to end surprise medical billing for all patients through the implementation of fair, market-based payments for out-of-network charges. By aligning out-of-network reimbursement to local, privately negotiated amounts, Congress would address the root cause of the exorbitant surprise bills and lower health care costs for consumers, employers and taxpayers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, linking out-of-network reimbursement to the median in-network payment would save consumers and taxpayers nearly $25 billion over the next ten years.