Earlier this month, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) questioned experts on enacting healthcare price transparency during a Senate Health Education labor and Pensions Committee hearing.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you very much, Senator Hickenlooper.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:06You covered this a little bit in terms of the cost, the lab fees and diagnostic tests
00:14that are leading drivers of the accumulation of this debt.
00:20I think that the Health Care Price Transparency Act put forward by Chairman Sanders and Senator
00:28Braun were a co-sponsor, but the Health Care Price Transparency Act really does require
00:37all negotiated rates and cash prices to be published for all shoppable health care services.
00:46I guess I'll start with Dr. El-Sayed.
00:51How do you think transparency measures in this bill help?
00:56What role can that play in actually addressing the cause of the creation of debt?
01:01I really appreciate the question.
01:03I think it plays an important role, and I shared my own story about needing a surgery
01:09for an inguinal hernia, and that's the kind of shoppable health care that that applies
01:14to.
01:15I do think that we need to be thinking about it in comprehensive inclusion with care for
01:23the kind of health care that Dr. Messick takes care of, which is not shoppable and
01:31has to be done at the edge of real risk.
01:34It is definitely part of the solution, and I think can be included in a broader package
01:40of asking how do we provide support and care for all the needs that people have.
01:46All right.
01:47I agree.
01:48Dr. Bayh, you mentioned in your testimony that the increasing competition in the marketplace
01:56is one of the most impactful aspects of lowering costs for patients, and certainly I couldn't
02:02agree more.
02:03You know, competition, appropriate competition, has historically always allowed us to lower
02:08costs, but it has to be tied in with a level of transparency, and I think that that kind
02:13of competition can push health care providers to continually innovate, which I think if
02:22you connect that to the increased transparency to patients could be a catalyst for finally
02:26lowering prices.
02:27So what can we do at the federal level not only to, you know, prioritize the policies
02:33that promote competition in the marketplace, but making sure that those savings, well,
02:38make sure that those savings ultimately reach patients?
02:42I think number one is to let the patients, let the individuals control their dollar for
02:48health care.
02:49Right now with detachment, let's say I'm a Medicaid patient.
02:53If I work out every day, eat healthy, I become healthier.
02:56That cannot benefit at all, right?
03:00And then if I want to see a different doctor, I can't.
03:03So these kind of regulatory constraints make sure that the patients cannot personally and
03:10directly benefit from better health or lower price.
03:13So we have to fix that.
03:15And number two, we must level the playing field.
03:19Right now, we totally, I mean Congress and the government, totally tilted the playing
03:24field in favor of big players.
03:26Then guess what?
03:27If I'm a big player, if my money comes from the government, I will just focus on influencing
03:31the process.
03:32I do not care about patients, right, because they don't bring money to me.
03:36But if you have a competitive market, guess what?
03:40My money comes from patients.
03:42I must make them happy in order to be rich.
03:44We want to be rich.
03:45But how do we do that, right?
03:47We must make patients happy, not the government happy.
03:49I think that's the key.
03:50All right.
03:51I appreciate that.
03:52That's a thoroughly American capitalistic approach.
03:56I came from China.
03:59I like American dynamism.
04:05In Colorado, we feel a certain amount of pride to help protect consumers from the harms caused
04:12by medical debt.
04:13Last year, we were one of the first states, I think we may be the first state in the nation
04:17to enact a law that prohibits the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports.
04:24Another law in Colorado caps the allowable interest on medical debt at 3 percent, goes
04:29from 8 percent down to 3 percent.
04:32Dr. Messick, in your testimony, you discussed the sad frequency with which patients forego
04:37necessary medical care out of fear for the bills that they're going to face afterwards.
04:43How does making changes in credit reporting and capping allowable interest lessen this
04:47burden on patients so that they can focus on getting the care that they need?
04:52Thank you, Senator.
04:54I think those are two huge steps.
04:56We know that patients who received, who had their credit reports, medical debt removed
05:01from their credit reports in recent studies, did see an increase in credit access.
05:05We know that patients are worried about what's going to happen to them if they don't pay
05:10their debts, and they have reason to fear those bills.
05:14If we can relieve them of some of those fears of ending up in a courtroom, paying off not
05:20only their medical bills, but also court costs and interest charges, as you mentioned, that'll
05:25be a huge step towards making sure that patients can follow through on treatment recommendations
05:30and get the care that we want them to.
05:32That's great.
05:33I couldn't agree more.
05:34I think that the patient's optimism and comfort, pretty much every doctor agrees that that
05:40is part of therapy, and having the debt and this accumulation of debt, the fear and anxiety
05:45that creates, cannot be healthy.
05:47I yield back to the chair.