Even for the Rube Goldberg machine that is the U.S. healthcare system, few policy predicaments are as vexing as surprise medical bills. After leaving the emergency room, nearly 1 in 7 patients across the United States receive a bill from their provider in the mail days or even weeks after they have been discharged. These recovering patients went to an in-network facility confident that their insurer would pay their expenses, only to find out that their attending physicians were out-of-network (an unfortunate side effect of Obamacare narrowing insurance networks).

Patients deserve a comprehensive system that protects them against surprise bills while respecting the principles of private enterprise. Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy’s “arbitration” proposal does just that, allowing patients across the country to rest easy after a potentially harrowing ER ordeal.