Last year, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee launched a process to draft legislation that would reduce the cost of health care in the United States, which began with the Committee soliciting feedback from interested health care stakeholders. In March 2019, Aimed Alliance provided initial recommendations to the Committee that touched on a number of issues, including copay accumulators, pharmacy benefit managers, rebates, surprise out-of-network medical bills, and telehealth. On May 23, 2019, the Committee released a discussion draft of the Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019, which was responsive to many of the issues that we raised in our initial recommendations. The discussion draft proposes to address factors that contribute to rising health care costs but leaves others untouched. Aimed Alliance submitted a second comment to the Committee thanking them for heeding some of our recommendations and emphasizing the importance of addressing the rest. This included asking the Committee to prohibit copay accumulator programs in employer-sponsored health insurance, expanding coverage of telehealth in Medicare, and imposing a fiduciary duty on pharmacy benefit managers. You can learn more by reviewing our letter.
Last Updated on September 30, 2023 by Aimed Alliance
