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Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Credit: McMorris Rodgers

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House Votes 320-71 for Health Transparency Bill

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Members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted 320-71 Monday to pass H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act bill.

Much of the bill relates to group health coverage, but a hospital transparency provision could help clients with Medicare coverage, by requiring hospitals that care for Medicare patients to post standard charges online.

Other provisions would require large and midsize Medicare Advantage plan issuers to send federal regulators reports on their ownership, relationships with suppliers of health care services and goods, and the flow of cash between the Medicare plans and the goods and services suppliers.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who introduced the bill, is the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That committee voted last week to approve 19 other bills related to health care and health coverage on a bipartisan basis. Just one of the bills that received a no vote.

What it means: Health care and health insurance continue to be opportunities for bipartisanship in the House.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress strongly oppose patient confusion about health care prices and about how their health coverage will work.

Medicare bills: Last week, ThinkAdvisor published a list of 10 House Energy bills that seem especially likely to influence Medicare and clients with Medicare coverage.

All of the bills in the article passed. All received at least 41 committee votes, and none received a no vote.

Seven of the bills were introduced by Republicans, and three of bills were introduced by Democrats.

H.R. 4881, one of the bills, would ban situations in which a Medicare patient’s co-payment for a drug is higher than the drug’s retail price.

Another bill, H.R. 5371, would make it easier for Medicare to cover wheelchairs that include titanium or carbon fiber in the base.

The list of bill also includes pharmacy and pharmacy benefits transparency provisions and provisions that would keep regional Medicare coverage determination teams from being more strict about coverage, in the long run, than the national Medicare coverage policymakers.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Credit: McMorris Rodgers


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