The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing June 10 entitled “Lowering Health Care Costs for All Americans: Examining Policies to Increase Health Care Transparency.” While the committee overall agreed that healthcare costs are too high and underscored the need for greater transparency measures, individual members disagreed on the major causes of rising costs and how to address them. Republicans spotlighted price transparency as the main inhibitor in lowering costs and encouraging competition, while Democrats cited recent federal cuts as an additional major contributor to ballooning healthcare costs.
The committee discussed multiple proposed bills, including the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act (H.R. 5582) and Clear Healthcare Expense Cost Knowledge Act (H.R. 9117). Republican members focused mostly on these and other bills intended to provide consumers with greater knowledge of costs on the front end of treatment as their main solutions to rising costs. Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) emphasized the need to codify a framework for hospital and insurer price transparency and consider policies focused on President Trump’s “Great Healthcare Plan.”
The President’s healthcare plan, released in January, includes redirecting subsidy payments to patients and allowing them to purchase insurance themselves, shifting toward individual-controlled healthcare spending accounts. Insurance companies would be mandated to create standardized breakdowns of prices and denial metrics, requiring drug prices to match the lowest price paid in other developed countries. Overall, the plan aims to lower healthcare costs by reducing the role of insurance companies as intermediaries, forcing prescription drug prices to come down, and increasing price transparency to consumers.
Democratic committee members, including Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), criticized the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Medicaid work requirements, and the expiring Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits as driving the increase in prices. Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) highlighted Medicaid work requirements necessitating people with devastating illnesses such as cancer, Parkinson’s and HIV to repeatedly prove they are too sick to work. He explained that this puts their coverage at risk and escalates costs in the long run by increasing the uninsured population. Additional caucus members pointed to healthcare consolidation, private-equity ownership, and vertical integration as major influences on prices.
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) asked Brown University School of Public Health Associate Professor Christopher Whaley, PhD, what causes the extreme price discrepancy between Medicare and commercial hospitals. In response, Whaley highlighted how the private market is becoming increasingly consolidated by private equity and large corporations, which have obtained greater leverage in price negotiations.
Families USA Senior Director of Health Policy Sophia Tripoli stated that private equity is “incompatible” with delivering affordable healthcare. This has created a large divide in the actual cost of care between government-subsidized and commercial systems. Multiple witnesses expressed support for H.R. 5582 and H.R. 9117 as ways to force down private hospital prices by giving patients as much information up front as possible.
Witnesses responded positively to both Republican and Democratic approaches to lowering costs, advocating for both a focus on transparency with patients, and reversing Medicaid cuts and expiration of Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits as fruitful solutions. Every witness and committee member agreed that healthcare costs have risen to unsustainable levels and that patients across the country are suffering as they are forced to skip lifesaving treatments.
Chiropractic Can Help Lower Costs
The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) believes that implementation of the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act (H.R. 539/S. 106) will lower costs and help prevent opioid abuse. Use the ACA Legislative Action Center to contact your federal legislators and urge them to support this vital healthcare initiative.
Emma Meehan is ACA associate manager of federal government relations.
