Were getting this going after votes. The house subcommittee will come to order. Brief Opening Statements and then two panels. Welcome all of you for coming. This is the Third Session of congress in which i have introduced legislation to ban the practice of surprise billing. Todays bipartisan hearing represents an initial effort by this committee to finally offer some relief to patients whove been bearing the brunt of a dispute between their insurers and some of their Health Care Providers. For patients, you can take all the right steps in attempting to see that your care network is covered but you may still face big bills. One in seven americans have received a surprise bill as part of receiving care at a hospital that is actually within their Insurance Network. The problem in san antonio, one of the communities that i represent, has been so extensive that jay avola has initiated an entire Television Series called show me your bill. And i think a quick video clip from that adequately d
To hospitals and Health Systems. The alliance for Health Policy is hosting this discussion. Particularly since i know tom, i think well have a very lively discussion this morning. So i am actually looking forward to hearing something today and im sure we will hear something quite interesting. So thank you and turn it over to sarah. So, welcome this morning to those who are joining us live on cspan2 and watching from home. Before we begin, i just want to make a quick note for the date for the next several breakfasts, well be doing them about once a month. The next will be march 29th and well talk about pandemic preparedness. Quite different from todays topic. Today were devilling delving into shifting dynamics in the Health Market. Consolidation and integration. Although there have been headlines about the topic, this is not a new issue in our Health Care System, so the panel of experts today is going to help us understand whats happening right now, what the implications are, and also,
Organization dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of Health Policy issues for the policy making community, the media and the surrounding stakeholders in the d. C. Area and beyond. So welcome this morning to those who are joining us live on cspan2 and watching from home. And before we begin, i just want to make a quick note about the dates for the next several breakfasts. Well be doing them about once a month. The next one will be march 29th, and we will be talking about pandemic preparedness. So quite different from todays topic. Today we are delving into the broad topic of shifting dynamics in the Health Care Market, and were going to take a closer look at the issues around market concentration, consolidation and integration. And although there have been a lot of recent headlines about this topic, this is not a new issue in our health care system, and so the panel of experts today is going to help us understand whats happening right now, what the implications are and als
What could we do, how could we work with Medicare Advantage plans and one way might be if a plan, if a beneficiary goes out of network, they have innetwork cost sharing but the plan reimbursing the out out of network hospital. Historically in particular providers have said no to Medicare Advantage because theyve been able to do so. Thank you. I saw three hands go up at once so we will go sarah and then down the road. Sarah with bloomberg law, can somebody comment on the idea that theres Cost Shifting from medicare to private plans . Seems to be assumed that there is but then there seems to be debate, is that really going on . Its important to differentiate between differences and price levels which are profound and dramatic and undeniable versus the theres a trickier question as to whether when medicare rates grow slowly or drop for some reason that that actually push out private rates and thats thats a much harder question and i did a paper that came out years ago that that, i think,
I gave them my Insurance Information and they came back and they said, we dont know. I would like to know how common that is and what is being done to try to let folks actually know what something costs. I might add, i had at the time a high deductible, so it was an important question about my outofpocket costs. The second question is Medicare Part d, when i noted it in the biography, mr. White was involved with in 2003, has a provision prohibiting the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies. And my question is, why is that still in the law . You want to take that one, ed . Why dont you start and ill do the first one. The second one real quick. The first one was, why cant they tell me what the price is . Like i said, forget about the email. Ask them what a price is and its like getting trade secrets out of cuba, right . Its next to impossible. What were seeing is that what the price is and what i owe are two different questions, right . So if i have coverage, i think