The People’s House is set to consider bipartisan legislation from Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and the Workforce that will bring much needed transparency to the health care sector to drive down costs.  

NEW POLLING by a nonpartisan nonprofit confirms that Americans support crucial provisions in the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act.  

This data shows Americans overwhelmingly want a more transparent and accountable health care system. Specifically, Americans are upset with facility fees and hospital upcharges for services that would be cheaper if they were performed in other sites, like physician offices.     

Here’s what Americans think when it comes to health care costs and the need for greater transparency. 

• 84% of participants think that health care is a high priority issue for Congress to address this year. 
• 81% of voters support lawmakers requiring big corporate hospitals to report data on facility fees, including how much revenue they are collecting from facility fees. 
• 74% of voters support banning facility fees everywhere for outpatient, same-day services, regardless of the service or where it is being performed.
• 95% of the public says it is important for Congress to pass a law to make health care costs more transparent to patients.

Bottom line: Americans want transparency, and they don’t want to pay more out of pocket for services just because they’re provided by a hospital-owned doctor’s office. 

The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act accomplishes these critical goals by:  

• Requiring hospitals to disclose their actual prices.  
• Requiring insurance companies to show patients what they will actually pay BEFORE they receive their care.  
• Implementing a modest, but critical, “site neutral” reform to end the upcharge for Medicare and senior citizens when a Medicare patient is administered a drug in a doctor’s office that is owned by a hospital.    
• At a bipartisan hearing this year, the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing testimony about a senior from Ohio who suffered from arthritis. 
• She saw her out-of-pocket cost for her annual steroid injection increase from $30 to $1,400 after her doctor's office was reclassified as hospital department. 
• She was receiving the exact same service from the exact same doctor in the exact same building as before. 
• The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act prevents this exorbitant price increase from happening, saving both seniors and Medicare significant sums of money. 

READ: 

• Bipartisan Lower Costs, More Transparency Act Saves Seniors Money, Strengthens Medicare 
• How the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act Helps Patients 
• Former Speaker Newt Gingrich: The one health care solution to protect everyone from outrageous medical bills 
• CLICK HERE to read more about the H.R. 5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act. 
• CLICK HERE to read a section-by-section summary of the bill. 
• CLICK HERE to read the bill text.