Better Solutions For Healthcare Endorses Bipartisan Effort in Senate to End Dishonest Hospital Billing
Momentum Builds For Reining in Corporate Hospital Systems, Addressing Healthcare Affordability Crisis
WASHINGTON, DC – (June 13, 2023) – Better Solutions for Healthcare, a national coalition of business and healthcare industry leaders, is urging Congress to advance the SITE Act, bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) to protect consumers from dishonest billing by corporate hospital systems. Better Solutions recently endorsed a similar measure in the House introduced by Kevin Hern (R-OK) and Annie Kuster (D-NH).
This legislative activity comes as hospitals face unprecedented scrutiny in Congress over anti-competitive practices that are a leading driver of the healthcare affordability crisis. Better Solutions recently released national polling showing widespread voter outrage over alarming and unreasonable hospital price markups. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee convened a pivotal hearing on the impact of hospital consolidation and corporate ownership in health care.
“For too long, hospitals have gamed the system to charge patients and employers more based on the setting of care through exorbitant ‘facility fees,’” said Alex Schriver, executive director of Better Solutions. “Ensuring fair billing practices is one of the most important things we can do right now to dramatically lower health care costs, and we applaud Sens. Braun and Hassan for introducing key site-neutral payment reforms. Momentum is clearly building in Congress around common-sense solutions to rein in corporate health systems and address the leading role they play in the healthcare affordability crisis.”
Ensuring honest billing practices by hospitals is one of four main policy priorities for the Better Solutions coalition. Other areas of emphasis include promoting hospital competition, reining in hospital price markups, and enforcing federal price transparency for hospital charges. The coalition also supports broader reforms to promote site-neutral payment policies.
ABOUT BETTER SOLUTIONS
Better Solutions for Healthcare is a coalition focused on educating consumers, employers, and lawmakers on the rising cost of healthcare and providing ideas on how we can work together to find better solutions that lower healthcare costs for all Americans.
National employer groups that have joined Better Solutions include American Benefits Council, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, Public Sector Healthcare Roundtable and Business Group on Health. The coalition also includes AHIP and BlueCross BlueShield Association.
For more information on Better Solutions for Healthcare, please visit the website or follow the campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.