by James Cowell
The escalating cost of health care in America has reached an unsustainable level, leaving millions of Americans saddled with medical debt. In Tennessee alone, 61 percent of residents have grappled with the burden of health care affordability, with 78 percent expressing concerns about affording health care in the future. As many of my fellow college students would agree, working within the confines of a tight budget means that the impact of high medical bills is that much more acute. And as a concerned and engaged citizen, I feel compelled to shine a spotlight on these critical affordability issues that impact everyone in my community.
High health care costs have rightfully become the focus of intense scrutiny. Many Americans are wrestling with all-too-high medical bills, and government health care programs consistently rank among the largest annual federal expenditures. With an aging population and an ever-changing public health environment, it is incumbent upon our elected officials to examine more solutions to bring down health care costs.
Fortunately, the House of Representatives has taken a positive step in the right direction with the passage of the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (LCMT). This legislation, featuring provisions for site-neutral payments, mandates that hospitals charge uniform prices across their various campuses. This is great progress towards a system of hospital billing designed to help patients save money and bring our national health care costs down. But more work must be done to solidify fair billing reform for the future.
Problematically, hospitals have been allowed to impose different rates for medical services based solely on the location of care. The site-neutral provisions in the LCMT Act work as a safeguard against unfair hospital billing practices – mandating that these hospital corporations charge patients based only on the services rendered, not based on the location where care is received. I thank the House of Representatives for their work to pass this important bill. This is a promising start, but further action is needed to finally give patients the financial protection they need when seeking basic medical services.
That’s why I call upon Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Bill Hagerty and their colleagues in Congress to support the Site-based Invoicing and Transparency Enhancement Act (SITE), which is a practical solution to comprehensively address the root causes of unfair hospital billing. By expanding cost-saving site-neutral hospital payments, the SITE Act would curtail wasteful Medicare spending, potentially reducing the program’s spending by $153 billion. Even better – if extended to the commercial market, the SITE Act could contribute to a reduction in the federal budget deficit by as much as $279 billion.
Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) – the office responsible for auditing federal government spending – even endorsed the SITE Act. He writes that adopting the bill would result in $141 billion in savings over a 10-year period – savings that would significantly lower government spending and reduce the federal budget deficit. I couldn’t agree more, and it is in these unprecedented times of high inflation and economic uncertainty that Congress must critically examine proposals like the SITE Act to truly make a difference in peoples’ lives.
The SITE Act is not only a beacon of fiscal responsibility, but it would move the needle forward significantly on fair hospital billing reform. This is necessary, commonsense legislation that would put more money back into the pockets of hard-working Tennesseans who are navigating strained household budgets.
Ultimately, we not only entrust our lawmakers to be responsible stewards of our hard-earned tax dollars, but to also serve as an advocate for the well-being of their constituents. Therefore, they should support a policy that not only benefits consumers and patients, but also addresses our inflated federal budget. The SITE Act stands to do both, and I hope Senators Blackburn and Hagerty will work swiftly to support it.
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James Cowell is a political activist, former Turning Point president, and ambassador at the Leadership Institute at the University of Tennessee.
