When I first arrived in Washington, I was in awe. The gleam off of the Capitol Dome was something to behold. It represented hope for me. It was a building in which the future of the country was debated, laws were written and amended, and real decisions were made. I was surrounded by bright staffers that, on both sides of the political aisle, had nothing but the best intentions for the country motivating them to do their best. Fast forward 15 years, and while the gleam is still there, I now understand a lot more about the sausage factory and what happens underneath that bright light shining on top of the hill. My understanding is becoming even clearer to me as a few congressmen keep pushing to harm doctors, our coronavirus frontline, by allowing insurance companies to impose price controls.
Congress is often dirty, immoral, lazy, and self-serving — but we can’t just stand by and watch it do bad things.
The first time that I got a full dose of this reality was during the debate over the America Invents Act. The bill was sold as legislation to build the innovation system, but the only message from the inventors and innovators was that the bill was horrible for innovation. That bill passed both the House and Senate with more votes than the Patriot Act, and not one single inventor was called to testify during the process. In fact, a few years later, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington, called it one of the worst votes that she had ever taken.
The problem with the bill was that it was complicated, and the lobbying from the people that use innovations (i.e., paying for innovation is a cost to their business) was deafening. There was no room to hear the truth from the people actually doing the innovating. Therefore, as the bill kept moving forward, members that didn’t understand the issue just went along with their leaders and voted for the complicated legislation. So, without understanding the consequences to the overall innovation ecosystem, members went ahead and approved it.
Fast forward to today, 10 years later, and now not only has the other side of the innovation issue grown largely quiet, but their follow-on bills to further crush innovation have also been stopped, some of their programs have been rolled back at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the innovators are finally starting to try to recover the market.
While innovation is still under attack from some of these groups, however, Congress is now discussing surprise medical billing, and it has the same telltale signs of being able to be pushed through by solely relying on a few immoral congressmen willing to take advantage of a complicated issue. This time though, the group being attacked is better armed to push back against this ill-advised legislation.
Surprise medical billing was a large part of the congressional debate at the end of last year. In short, some congressmen want to hand over the healthcare marketplace to insurance companies. They don’t want patients to have a say, they don’t want doctors to have a say, and they don’t want hospitals to have a say. They just want to give all of the power to insurance companies. Doctors were able to stop this bill last year, but it took a gargantuan effort to put a stop to anything being included in the end-of-year budget deal.
The supporters of this pro-insurance, top-down legislative push ignore the solution already on the table that works to solve the same problem. This solution, which implements an independent dispute resolution system, has already been implemented in New York — and insurance companies even say that it works.
But Congress is so blinded by its drive to give insurance companies complete control of the market, it doesn’t seem to care about alternative solutions that are already working, and it is still attempting to add its crony solution to a fourth coronavirus response bill.
So, while doctors are fighting a pandemic on the frontlines, people are stuck in their homes attempting to help flatten the curve, and the economy is still on standby, these congressmen are talking about backstabbing doctors with a legislative solution that will also undermine our whole healthcare system. Their solution is only supported by the insurance industry and congressmen that haven’t looked into the issue. It is a bad idea, at best.
Surprise bills aren’t good, and they are a sign that our healthcare system is broken. However, the solution to any problem isn’t to use the large sledgehammer of government to harm one industry to help another. The right solution to surprise billing is to look at the causes and address them.
An independent dispute resolution solution is the best solution on the table right now. It is a magnitude better solution than price setting and won’t break the healthcare marketplace further.
We need a real discussion surrounding healthcare reform, but right now we should focus on making sure that our healthcare providers have our support and everything that they need to get over this pandemic so that the economy can get back on track.
Charles Sauer (@CharlesSauer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor, and for an academic think tank.
