Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., shared a new series of proposals to lower healthcare costs while lamenting that Democrats have torpedoed earlier efforts.
The plan outlined Tuesday by Cassidy aims to create greater transparency of healthcare prices, eliminate “gag clauses” on pharmacies, and spark reforms to Obamacare. But Cassidy conceded it might be difficult to pass something this year.
He pointed to the collapse of a bipartisan effort to stabilize Obamacare’s insurance exchanges on the individual market, which is used by people who don’t get insurance through a job or the government. The effort fell apart after a disagreement over restrictions on the new funding covering abortions.
“The bad news is that the U.S. Senate is split almost evenly, and Washington Democrats refuse to work with us to make things better,” Cassidy said in a statement. “We saw Senator [Bill] Nelson ultimately oppose Collins-Nelson, a bipartisan agreement he helped initiate. We saw Senator [Patty] Murray ultimately oppose Alexander-Murray, a bipartisan agreement she helped initiate. Why did they do this? Election-year politics, plain and simple.”
Cassidy added that “just because the votes in the Senate aren’t there right now doesn’t mean we should stop coming up with ideas to address the problems in our healthcare system.”
Among Cassidy’s proposals are changes to Obamacare.
He called for incentives for states to “encourage young people to enter the individual market.” A major problem for Obamacare has been an insufficient number of younger people signing up on the law’s insurance exchanges.
Cassidy also called for combining the risk pool and money for both the individual market and the Medicaid expansion.
Other ideas include improving transparency to enable patients to know the prices of healthcare procedures.
Another proposal would end “gag clauses” in contracts between pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies. The gag clause prevents a pharmacy from telling a patient they can buy a drug cheaper out of pocket than through insurance.
Cassidy has co-sponsored legislation in the Senate to address “gag clauses” in private plans.
The Trump administration recently called for an end to the practice for vendors of Medicare Part D, the program’s prescription drug plan. But the practice still exists for private plans.
Cassidy’s plan also calls for addressing surprise medical bills and would eliminate Obamacare’s tax on medical devices, which is currently delayed until 2020.
