The 2020 No Surprises Act was a major bipartisan success for those who don’t want to be plagued by crippling and unexpected medical bills. The attempts to undermine and weaken this law could raise health care costs across the board.
In Case You Missed It via The Hill, an op-ed, penned by Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA), argues that the federal district court’s ruling on the No Surprises Act endangers the implementation of this critical law.
By Reps. Virginia Foxx, Bobby Scott
April 11, 2022
For too long, millions of Americans were on the receiving end of “surprise medical bills”—the unexpected charges from out-of-network health providers and hospitals that would leave families financially drained or, even worse, in medical bankruptcy. These costs were unbearable for any individual patient, and as a country, we were all paying the price—on average, the most common kinds of surprise medical bills were adding $40 billion to workers’ health care premiums on an annual basis.
When the No Surprises Act passed in 2020, it represented a milestone in achieving a common goal of better, more affordable health care for Americans. It showed that Members of Congress can work together in a bipartisan way to solve a problem that devastated lives and raised health care costs. Now, with federal protections finally in place, critics of the law continue to undermine this bipartisan achievement through a last-ditch effort to challenge its implementation.
Last month, a federal district court struck down portions of the rule implementing this important law. This decision could threaten patient protections and raise health care costs for millions of Americans. As the House Committee of jurisdiction over employer-sponsored health plans, the Committee on Education and Labor played a leading role in the development of the No Surprises Act.
…
Threats to this law should not stand. Patients deserve better than forgoing care they need for fear that they’ll end up responsible for a medical expense they can’t afford.
…
To keep health care costs in check and to achieve a long-standing goal of lowering insurance premiums, Congress intentionally established clear guardrails for how the dispute resolution process should work and strong policies that would support a more competitive health care market. Together, these consumer protections were designed to reduce Americans’ premiums and save taxpayers more than $17 billion over the next decade.
Original source can be found here.
