The Ohio House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed piece of legislation last week that tries to make hospital prices more transparent and affordable.
The Ohio House progressed House Bill (HB) 49 by a 90-5 vote advancing the legislation to the Ohio Senate for its review.
Federal law already requires hospitals to provide information about standard prices online. However, a majority of hospitals today are not in compliance.
HB 49, sponsored by State Representatives Tim Barhorst (R-Wintersville) and Ron Ferguson (R-Fort Laramie), would codify these federal laws into the Ohio Revised Code to allow for greater enforcement.
“This bill will empower consumers to make informed decisions about their health care. By codifying and enforcing existing federal laws, we hope to lower costs for hardworking Ohioans,” Ferguson (pictured above, left) said.
According to Ferguson, the intent of the bill is to remove any surprises for individuals seeking health care.
“Make sure that when you go into a hospital, you know exactly what you’re going to be paying for something and you know before you go,” Ferguson said.
If the legislation becomes law, there would be restrictions on collecting payment from patients if a hospital was found to violate these price transparency requirements, including banning referring, assigning, and selling medical debt to collectors, banning the use of the court system to get a judgment on outstanding medical debt, and filing a negative credit report against a patient for outstanding debt.
According to Barhorst (pictured above, right), the passage of this bill is his top priority.
“This was my priority bill and this is really the reason I ran. We have to take these steps to ensure Ohioans not only have control over their healthcare options but to ensure the healthcare system in Ohio is in lockstep with federal law and medicare rules. Our hope is to alleviate problems towards the unknown cost of health care and give people the transparency they deserve,” Barhorst said.
The proposal is based on a bill that a majority Democratic legislature in Colorado passed last year. According to the Ohio bill’s sponsors, this is evidence that “healthcare transparency is a nonpartisan issue.”
Patientrightsadvocate.org, a national nonprofit pushing for healthcare transparency across the nation, told The Ohio Star that it applauds the passage of HB 49.
“We thank and applaud the Ohio House of Representatives for its overwhelming bipartisan support of HB 49, the strongest bill of its kind in the nation. Healthcare price transparency empowers patients to greatly lower their costs through upfront prices and choice. It protects all consumers from hospital overcharging and gives them easy recourse if overbilled. Unfortunately, our review found that most Ohio hospitals still aren’t complying with a federal rule requiring them to post their actual prices online,” Cynthia Fisher, founder and chairman of patientrightsadvocate.org, told The Star.
“HB 49 will incentivize hospitals to comply by allowing patients to avoid paying bills from hospitals that hide their prices. When all Ohio hospitals post their actual, upfront prices (not estimates), a functional, competitive healthcare marketplace will emerge that reverses the runaway costs burdening so many Ohioans,” she added.
Lawmakers will now consider the legislation in the Ohio Senate.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star, The Star News Network, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Background Photo “Ohio Capitol” by Ɱ. CC BY-SA 4.0.
