Lower Costs, More Transparency Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act. This bipartisan bill does exactly what it says it does: It delivers lower healthcare costs for the American people and brings much-needed transparency to our Nation's healthcare system.

Access to affordable healthcare remains a major challenge for many American families. More than 40 percent of adults say they have either delayed or forgone medical care because of high costs. Prices for healthcare services also vary widely. Consumers often have difficulty obtaining price information to begin with. Another problem is that the information can be misleading or inaccurate, making it difficult for consumers to compare prices across healthcare providers before receiving care. Too many patients are forced to wait until after they receive care and receive their medical bill to see what they actually owe.

H.R. 5378 brings some much-needed transparency to the healthcare system by codifying and strengthening important price transparency protections. It is a victory for everyone who has ever struggled to navigate and understand the cost of a healthcare procedure or a prescription drug at the pharmacy counter. These measures will empower consumers and employers with data on the prices hospitals charge and the rates insurers pay so that they can compare prices and save money.

It also increases transparency of how pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, affect drug prices at the pharmacy counter. This will also help increase competition and lower healthcare costs for Americans. We have added new language in the bill to enhance the privacy protections for consumers' health information and to ensure that the full protection of the HIPAA privacy rule is applicable.

I also want to mention, Mr. Speaker, the bill reduces costs for patients by ensuring Medicare beneficiaries are not paying more for the exact same drug because it was administered in a hospital outpatient department instead of a physician's office. It will also build on Democrats' work to rein in the soaring cost of prescription drugs by requiring the FDA to provide more information to generic drug manufacturers during the development process. This will help speed up the path to market and increase competition sooner to lower drug prices faster. All of these provisions in this bill will help make healthcare and prescription drugs more affordable for the American people.

I also want to mention, Mr. Speaker, that H.R. 5378 will also make healthcare more accessible to American families thanks to critical investments in our Nation's public health programs that serve low- income and uninsured patients. The bill includes increased funding for community health centers at $4.4 billion per year, an unprecedented 10 percent increase over current funding levels.

Community health centers are a critical source of primary healthcare for more than 30 million patients, 1 in every 11 Americans. These centers deliver high-quality, affordable healthcare to some of our most vulnerable communities, and this increased funding will allow these centers to continue providing this critical care.

The bill increases funding for the National Health Service Corps, which places doctors in high-need communities. It also includes an unprecedented 7 years of funding, more than double the funding under current law, for the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program to support the training of primary care physicians in community-based settings. This program helps address doctor shortages in underserved areas as graduates of the program are likely to practice close to their training sites and to care for underserved patients. This long-term funding will help bring more certainty to the program to ensure that teaching health centers can plan and recruit for their residency programs.

Finally, the bill also reauthorizes and increases funding for both the Special Diabetes Program and Special Diabetes Program for Indians. These programs provide critical investments in diabetes research and care.

I will also mention that H.R. 5378 eliminates looming cuts to Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospitals to support these high-need hospitals that provide care for large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients.

The increased funding for each of these public health and workforce programs is essential to ensuring access to care for our constituents across the country. All of this funding is fully offset with policies that will further strengthen our healthcare system and help reduce costs for American families.

Mr. Speaker, when a version of this bill came before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, it passed unanimously with bipartisan support. Chair Rodgers and I have been working on this bill all year, and I commend her for her ongoing commitment to get it across the finish line. It is an important bill that delivers meaningful results.

I will also take an opportunity to thank some of the staff who have worked on this. From my committee staff, I thank Tiffany Guarascio, Waverly Gordon, Una Lee, Saha Khaterzai, Rick Van Buren, Stephen Holland, and Lydia Abma. From the Republican staff, I thank Nate Hodson, Sarah Burke, Grace Graham, and Corey Ensslin.

Floor action today simply would not have been possible without months of long-term commitment by the staff on both sides of the aisle to get this done. I think you can tell that I really think this is probably one of the most important bills that will come out of the Committee on Energy and Commerce this session. It is truly bipartisan, which is another thing I think is very important right now.

I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the bill to lower healthcare costs for the American people and to make healthcare more accessible.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me say that I concur with my colleagues and partners in crafting this important bipartisan piece of legislation that is intended to codify and improve upon the robust requirements that exist in the regulations that have been implemented by both the Trump and Biden administrations. With this bill, we seek to bring true health price transparency to lower costs for patients, employers, and unions purchasing health coverage.

This bill is a floor, not a ceiling, and I intend that the implementing agencies will use the discretion left to them to ensure that health plans and insurers disclose the detailed price information and necessary data on reimbursement rates for healthcare items and services. We intend to follow this colloquy with a bipartisan letter to the agencies reiterating our expectations in greater detail.

In addition, in further colloquy with Chair Rodgers, I address a technical change that needs to be made to the bill in negotiations with the Senate. In the new version of the bill, we have limited the drug price data flowing to small employers in order to strengthen health privacy protections for their employees. However, I want to make clear that we did not intend to exclude multiemployer, public sector, or retiree-only and union health plans under this new provision, and we are committed to fixing this issue before the bill becomes law. Ranking Member Bobby Scott also agrees with this perspective.

I ask Chair Rodgers if she would concur with me that we make sure this issue is addressed in our negotiation with the Senate and before the bill becomes law.

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Mr. PALLONE.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Representative Doggett, for his hard work on the important issues that he raised and that have been raised today. I should mention that he is the ranking member of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, so he is very familiar with these issues.

I know he thinks that certain things should have been added to this bill, but I want to stress that I think we have to support this bill based on the important policies that we have in the bill. It is not always easy to get consensus between Democrats and Republicans. This is one of those rare examples, unfortunately, where we have come to a consensus, which our committee often does. That is why I do stress the important policies that are in it.

I think the legislation is a victory for the American people. It addresses a lot of obvious failings in our health system. The bill brings some much-needed price transparency to the healthcare system and will help lower healthcare costs for patients.

Americans have been struggling for years to obtain accurate price information before going in for a healthcare procedure. It is difficult for patients to know how much a hospital or their insurance company will charge them for the care that they receive.

All this information should be readily available to the public. This bill requires hospitals and insurance companies to list prices in an easy to understand format for patients.

The bill also prevents hospital outpatient facilities from unfairly overcharging seniors. This policy will save Medicare beneficiaries $1.4 billion in lower premiums.

The bill helps further rein in the cost of prescription drugs by cracking down on price gouging by pharmacy benefit managers and requires the PBMs to be transparent about their price information.

This is going to help lower healthcare costs for both employers and patients and bring needed oversight to the PBM industry.

In addition to these patient protection provisions, the legislation includes a historic $15 billion in investments in safety net and workforce programs and programs to address physician shortages around the country.

The legislation essentially lowers healthcare costs for the American people and makes healthcare more accessible to American families. I think this delivers meaningful results to the American people on a bipartisan basis.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. If the chair needs time for people who will support the bill, I will yield to them.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot emphasize the importance of this bill. I think that in terms of the overall effort to increase affordability, to increase access to healthcare, and to make sure that there is competition, if you will, within the hospital industry and within the insurance industry, this bill does all of those things.

It is really amazing, in my opinion, that we are able to do this on a bipartisan basis. It came out of committee, I believe, unanimously. I think it will go far towards increasing affordability, accessibility, and competition, which also lowers prices.

For all those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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