House subcommittee holds hearing on ways to reduce health care costs

AHA on April 26 submitted a statement to the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions for a hearing on ways to reduce health care costs. As part of the hearing, the committee discussed several pieces of legislation, including bills to treat telehealth services as excepted benefits, expand the use of association health plans, and allow small businesses to access stop-loss insurance.
  
To increase access to quality care at reduced costs, AHA recommended Congress encourage the Administration to streamline price transparency policies, comply with a recent federal court ruling on the No Surprises Act’s independent dispute resolution process and consider other reforms to ensure it operates as Congress intended. AHA also recommended Congress permanently adopt waivers that have improved access to care, establish a sustainable framework for the future of telehealth and care delivery as a whole, and called mergers “a vital tool” to help keep some financially struggling hospitals open.