At home, most of us are trying to figure out just how to survive a pandemic, but Congress is seemingly working on ways to make it even harder. Amid their debates on which pork projects to fund, and how much actual aid they need to distribute in relationship to the gifts they hand their friends to avoid riots, Congress is also considering handing over the healthcare industry to insurance companies.
Surprise billing is back in the mix, and if the fixes are anything like we have seen from the key congressional committees in the past, they are top-down solutions that give the insurance industry the ability to decide if patients will have access to doctors or not.
Surprise bills are the bills that patients receive when insurance companies fail to pay our doctors. While they aren’t common, this happens enough that Congress has made up its mind that something needs to be done. Instead of following the path of successful reforms, like what has been done in New York and Texas, Congress has primarily been discussing ignoring doctors altogether and giving all the market power to insurance companies.
But we don’t need price controls to fix our medical system. Handing over the ability for one industry (insurance companies) to set the prices for another industry (doctors) without regard for the other industry is a recipe for doctor shortages. The economics of this idea are simple. If prices decrease, there will be less supply — or if doctors are paid less, they will work less, retire earlier, or stop entering the workforce altogether. That means less access for patients.
I am not alone in that conclusion. The American Medical Association and 114 specialty and state societies, representing hundreds of thousands of physicians, took a strong stand last Wednesday in an impressive letter with a conclusion that now is not the time to adopt divisive surprise billing legislation.
Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. Greg Walden are wearing out shoe leather around Capitol Hill, like they are already in Gucci Gulch, desperately trying to convince members of Congress who have so far proved that they know better that their benchmarking proposal for surprise medical bills should be passed. They have failed to garner the necessary support to pass their bill as standalone legislation, so now they’re trying to insert their plan into COVID-19 relief legislation. The two Republicans are desperate since they are retiring. This is their last shot to give their health insurance cronies one last massive, big money handout.
Fortunately, Sen. Mitch McConnell has so far resisted the advocacy of these senators, preferring to focus on the bigger and more pressing issues of pandemic response. However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken up the cause and is pushing for chairmen in her caucus to come to an agreement that she can include in this several trillion-dollar bill.
As Congress rushes to put together another, and hopefully last, pandemic relief bill, it should stay focused on COVID-19 and economic recovery instead of price controls and breaking the healthcare industry. Members of Congress love to talk about how grateful they are for our healthcare heroes. If they are honest in their praise for them, they should reject jamming surprise medical bills into this relief bill. It would create a reduction in access to healthcare precisely at a time when we need access the most.
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.
