Governor Lamont Proposes Legislation To Reduce Health Care Costs

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02/21/2023

Governor Lamont Proposes Laws To Lower Overall health Treatment Expenses

(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont right now held a news conference in New Britain to announced that he has submitted multi-pronged legislative proposals to the Normal Assembly that emphasis on lessening health care prices for Connecticut residents, with a particular emphasis on maximizing level of competition, doing away with avoidable prices, decreasing mounting selling prices, and increasing affordability for inhabitants and businesses.

The laws is House Bill 6669, An Act Safeguarding Clients and Prohibiting Needless Overall health Treatment Costs, and Senate Monthly bill 983, An Act Restricting Anticompetitive Health and fitness Care Procedures.

“Gallup not long ago documented that document-large numbers of Us citizens are putting off treatment because of to expenditures,” Governor Lamont claimed. “Approximately 38{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of Us residents put off treatment in 2022, the best share Gallup has at any time witnessed in its 22 several years of polling. Two-thirds of personal bankruptcies are linked to medical debt, the most prevalent cause of individual bankruptcy, and health care is consuming a greater and larger sized share of GDP, now extra than 18{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. We basically can no for a longer time afford not to get action. These payments I’m proposing tackle this advanced dilemma from several angles, and I am contacting on all parties – insurers, hospitals, medical professionals, businesses, and individuals – to sign up for with me in working on alternatives for the people of Connecticut.”

“Access to reasonably priced and quality health and fitness treatment is one of most crucial difficulties experiencing Connecticut families and organizations at a time when charges are rising and insurance coverage addresses fewer than it utilised to,” Comptroller Sean Scanlon said. “The struggle for much better overall health care for the folks of this condition is a single of my most important priorities as comptroller, and I’m very pleased to be working with Governor Lamont to move a ‘patients first’ overall health care reform agenda that will decreased charges and guarantee absolutely everyone has access to the treatment they deserve.”

“While our state’s health and fitness care system is superior in quality and ranks amongst the ideal nationwide, the increasing prices keep on being a barrier for considerably also quite a few folks and benefits in quite a few folks placing off treatment due to the fact they just cannot manage it,” Dr. Deidre Gifford, executive director of the Connecticut Place of work of Wellbeing Tactic, mentioned. “It is distinct that medical center inpatient, medical center outpatient, and retail pharmacy expenditures are the biggest contributors to the well being care affordability difficulty. Wellness procedure consolidation and lack of levels of competition is also contributing. These multi-pronged proposals tackle significant expense drivers in these spots and extend on our continuing initiatives to contain medical costs.”

“The price of overall health treatment is a problem for approximately anyone in the point out, but it is specifically acute for men and women of colour,” Tiffany Donelson, president and CEO of the Connecticut Wellness Basis and member of the Office of Wellness Strategy’s Healthcare Benchmark Initiative Steering Committee, reported. “Data from the Connecticut Health care Affordability Index display that folks of color are specifically possible to have overall health treatment charges that are unaffordable – that is, their overall health treatment expenses are much too significant to meet other primary desires devoid of heading into credit card debt. The outcomes of unaffordable wellness treatment are crystal clear and troubling: people skipping treatment, avoiding treatment, and residence budgets stretched to the breaking issue to spend off health-related financial debt. We are not able to reach overall health fairness unless of course well being treatment is very affordable. The will cause of superior health treatment costs are intricate, but the need is straightforward – we must all work collectively to assure that all people can afford to get the treatment they will need when they need to have it.”

The legislation:

• Eradicates hospital facility charges billed at free of charge-standing workplaces and clinics.
• Implements much better regulatory enforcement tools at the Connecticut Place of work of Overall health System to assure compliance with certification of need to have requirements and similar ailments of approval, these types of as cost controls, patient access, and in-depth reporting. This will control well being care expenses by avoiding duplicative solutions in specific locations, when making sure availability and accessibility to critical solutions in all pieces of the state.
• Commits Connecticut to joining a multistate bulk paying for consortium to negotiate prescription drug discounts that all of the state’s citizens will be able to accessibility by means of a price cut card at their pharmacy.
• Calls for the Connecticut Office environment of Wellness Method to per year publish a listing of prescription prescription drugs that are dealing with important cost spikes to notify shoppers and prescribers about which drug charges are likely up and by how a great deal.
• Reins in aggressive advertising methods by pharmaceutical associates to guarantee prescribers get very clear and precise information about the prescription drugs they prescribe and generic alternatives. Pharmaceutical reps will be essential to entire a instruction, register with the state, and disclose suitable details about drug fees and efficacy across various races and ethnicity, if recognised.
• Strengthens protections to be certain that discounted prescription prescription drugs purchased by way of the federal 340B software gain the low-money consumers and communities the software was designed to assistance.
• Stops selling price gouging when patients get care from a company who is not in their network. Specially, the governor is proposing to limit out-of-community costs for inpatient and outpatient medical center providers to 100{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} of the Medicare price for the similar service in the same geographic spot.
• Outlaws the use of anti-competitive contracting tactics that have been made use of by health and fitness systems to impede level of competition and enhance price ranges. This will present wellbeing insurers with extra bargaining electrical power to make it less complicated to negotiate cost-effective selling prices for buyers. These consist of:
  • Anti-tiering clauses: Requiring a health and fitness prepare to increase a desired price tier standing to all facilities or supplier in a health process, even if selected providers do not meet value or high quality specifications for that tier.
  • Anti-steering clauses: Prohibiting insurers from using incentives to steer clients to better worth vendors.
  • All-or-nothing clauses: Demanding wellbeing strategies to settle for all suppliers in a health care method or none of them.
  • Gag clauses: Stopping events from disclosing pertinent facts, including rate or terms of an arrangement to a third celebration.

Home Invoice 6669 has been referred to the Community Wellness Committee, and Senate Monthly bill 983 has been referred to the Insurance policies and Actual Estate Committee.

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Twitter: @GovNedLamont

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Fb: Office of Governor Ned Lamont

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