July 13, 2020
Dear Senators,
Timely Request: We write urgently asking you to please co-sponsor The Health Care PRICE Transparency Act (S. 4106), a bipartisan 90/10 issue which requires hospitals and insurers to publish their cash prices and secret negotiated rates in an easily accessible place online. We encourage you to join Senators Braun, Barrasso, Enzi, Ernst, Grassley, Kennedy and Loeffler and include the legislation in the COVID-19 Phase IV stimulus bill. The Congressional Budget Office informally scored this bill at no cost to taxpayers, and a tremendous economic benefit to all Americans, businesses, government, and our economy.
Healthcare price transparency will:
- Empower patients with transparent prices and control, providing financial certainty to American workers, employers, and taxpayers – needed now more than ever.
- End surprise billing and protect consumers from unscrupulous providers.
- Enable patients and businesses to shop in a functional, competitive marketplace for the best quality of care at the lowest price.
- Drive down the costs of healthcare and coverage for patients and businesses by 30-50% (supported by economic and empirical evidence).
- Put more money into the wages and wallets of American consumers and allow businesses to re-launch and grow jobs.
- Extinguish the current legal challenges to the Administration’s price transparency rules.
- Provide an economic stimulus to the country of over $1 trillion per year according to economists.
Healthcare price transparency is a bipartisan issue: 90% of all Americans support requiring hospitals and insurance companies to show their discounted cash prices and negotiated rates according to three independent surveys. An overwhelming majority of Americans know that when they can shop and be in control, competition will improve quality and reduce the costs of both care and coverage.
We ask you to please sign on to S. 4106.
Sincerely,
Cynthia A. Fisher
Founder, Chairman, PatientRightsAdvocate.org
Kevin Roberts, PhD
Executive Director, Texas Public Policy Foundation
David Balat
Executive Director, Free2Care
Heather R. Higgins