Category Archives: Health Policy

Three Million People Lost Health Coverage From Their Employers During The Pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2020/09/20/pandemics-wrath-on-worker-health-coverage-tops-3-million-so-far/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=coronavirus&cdlcid=5d2c97df953109375e4d8b68#58cf3e92ed47

More than three million American workers lost health insurance coverage this spring and summer from their employers as the pandemic and spread of Covid-19 triggered massive job losses, a new study shows.

In all, there were 3.3 million adults under the age of 65 who lost employer-sponsored health insurance and almost two-thirds of them, or 1.9 million, “became newly uninsured from late April through mid-July,” according to a new analysis by The Urban Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The loss of employer coverage has hit Hispanic adults particularly hard with 1.6 million losing health benefits, Urban Institute researchers said.

And it could get worse.

“With continued weakness in the labor market, researchers conclude federal and state policymakers will need to act to prevent job losses from leading to further increases in uninsurance,” the authors of the report wrote about their analysis, which was derived from  2020 U.S. Census data.

In particular, the analysis underscores the need to expand health benefits, particularly Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, analysts say. The ACA dangled billions of dollars in front of states to expand Medicaid coverage for poor Americans but 12 states generally led by Republican Governors or legislatures have refused while President Donald Trump and his appointees at the U.S. Justice Department fight led by Republican Governors

 “The danger of an inadequate safety net can be seen in the non-expansion states, where the number of uninsured adults has already increased more than 1 million,” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation senior policy advisor Katherine Hempstead said in a statement accompanying the report.

 

 

 

CDC pulls revised guidance on coronavirus from website

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Election, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Expert, Expert Opinion, False Hope, False Narrative, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Misinformation, Misinterpret, Mislead, Misleading, Mistake, Mistrust, Mixed Message, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Partisanship, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Trust, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/517387-cdc-says-revised-guidance-on-airborne-coronavirus-transmission-posted-in

National coronavirus updates: CDC provides detailed guidance on reopening - ExpressNews.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Monday pulled revised guidance from its website that had said airborne transmission was thought to be the main way the coronavirus spreads, saying it was “posted in error.”

The sudden change came after the new guidance had been quietly posted on the CDC website on Friday.

“CDC is currently updating its recommendations regarding airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19),” the CDC wrote. “Once this process has been completed, the update language will be posted.”

The CDC guidance on the coronavirus is now the same as it was before the revisions.

The change and the the reversal comes as the CDC comes under extensive scrutiny over whether decisions by and guidance from government scientists are being affected by politics.

Just last week, President Trump contradicted CDC Director Robert Redfield on the timing of a vaccine and the necessity of wearing masks. 

Public health experts were pleased with the updated guidance, saying evidence shows COVID-19 can be spread through the air and that the public should be made aware of that fact. 

The World Health Organization issued a warning in July, saying that coronavirus could be spread through people talking, singing and shouting after hundreds of scientists released a letter urging it to do so.

The CDC said the guidance posted Friday was a “draft version of proposed changes.”

It is not clear if that draft will eventually become the CDC’s guidance, or if it will go through additional changes.

CNN first reported the new guidance on Sunday.

The now-deleted guidance had noted that the coronavirus could spread through airborne particles when an infected person “coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breaths.”

“There is growing evidence that droplets and airborne particles can remain suspended in the air and be breathed in by others, and travel distances beyond 6 feet (for example, during choir practice, in restaurants, or in fitness classes),” the agency had written. “In general, indoor environments without good ventilation increase this risk.”

“These particles can be inhaled into the nose, mouth, airways, and lungs and cause infection,” the deleted guidance said. “This is thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

 

 

 

 

Administration’s Record on Health Care

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President Trump’s Record on Health Care

President Trump's Record on Health Care | KFF

A review of Trump’s health care record so far. Avoiding the problematic issue of Trump’s alleged plan, analysts at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation released a report this week that examines President Trump’s record on health care over the last three and half years. Some highlights from the overview and the full analysis:

  • On the Affordable Care Act: “From the start of his presidential term, President Trump took aim at the Affordable Care Act, consistent with his campaign pledge leading up to the 2016 election. He supported many efforts in Congress to repeal the law and replace it with an alternative that would have weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions, eliminated the Medicaid expansion, and reduced premium assistance for people seeking marketplace coverage. While the ACA remains in force, President Trump’s Administration is supporting the case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ACA in its entirety that is scheduled for oral arguments one week after the election.”

 

  • On Medicare and Medicaid: “The Administration has proposed spending reductions for both Medicaid and Medicare, along with proposals that would promote flexibility for states but limit eligibility for coverage under Medicaid (e.g., work requirements).”

 

  • On drug prices: “The President has made prescription drug prices a top health policy priority and has issued several executive orders and other proposals that aim to lower drug prices; most of these proposals, however, have not been implemented, other than one change that would lower the cost of insulin for some Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, and another that allows pharmacists to tell consumers if they could save money on their prescriptions. The Trump Administration has also moved forward with an initiative to improve price transparency in an effort to lower costs, though it is held up in the courts.”

 

  • On the response to the coronavirus: “The Trump administration has not established a coordinated, national plan to scale-up and implement public health measures to control the spread of coronavirus, instead choosing to have states assume primary responsibility for the COVID-19 response, with the federal government acting as back-up and ‘supplier of last resort.’ The President has downplayed the threat of COVID-19, given conflicting messages and misinformation, and often been at odds with public health officials and scientific evidence.”

 

President Trump’s Record on Health Care – Issue Brief

 

One million Americans lost health insurance last year

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Deferred Healthcare, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/16/health-202-one-million-americans-lost-health-insurance-last-year/?utm_campaign=wp_the_health_202&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_health202

Analysis | The Health 202: One million Americans lost health insurance last year - Digital Tariq

Americans became wealthier and more held jobs last year.

Yet at the very same time, one million people lost health insurance. And that number has steadily climbed this year under the pandemic.

A U.S. Census Bureau report released yesterday showed a continued slow erosion of the nation’s insured rate in 2019. The decline of coverage illustrates both the shortcomings of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care law and repeated attempts by President Trump and Republicans to undermine it.

“Though the reasons are sharply debated, the new data signifies that the first three years of President Trump’s tenure were a period of contracting health insurance coverage,” Amy Goldstein writes. “The decreases reversed gains that began near the end of the Great Recession and accelerated during early years of expanded access to health plans and Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act.”

Nearly 30 million Americans lacked health coverage in 2019.

The uninsured rate rose to 29.6 million people, totaling 9.2 percent of the population. It has slowly ticked upward since 2016, when 28.1 million people didn’t have a health plan. Between 2018 and 2019, the share of people without coverage increased in 19 states and decreased in just one.

The share of people on Medicare and with employer-sponsored coverage actually increased slightly. That was due to an aging population and last year’s booming economy, which meant more people had workplace plans — still the chief way Americans get their coverage.

The biggest erosions in coverage took place in state Medicaid programs.

Medicaid enrollment fell from 17.9 percent of Americans to 17.2 percent.

One reason for the decline is positive: As poverty rates fell for all major racial and ethnic groups, more people earned too much to qualify for the program. The poverty rate fell to 18.8 percent for Blacks, 15.7 percent for Hispanics and 9.1 percent for Whites.

But other factors were also at play. People no longer face a tax penalty for being uninsured, after Congress repealed it in 2017. Several GOP-led states expanded enrollment requirements. And wide disparities persisted in how states run their programs.

Missouri voters recently approved Medicaid expansion, making the state the seventh to do so under President Trump.

“There is huge variation state-to-state in the ease of enrollment, the administrative process, the mechanisms for verifying eligibility, how hard the state works to sign people up,” said Katherine Baicker, a health economist at the University of Chicago. “All those have big effects on net take-up rates.”

The trickle of coverage losses has become a flood under the pandemic.

Before the coronavirus pandemic upended life, the United States was enjoying a record-long economic expansion. By the end of last year, the unemployment rate was at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent.

“Women outnumbered men in the workforce for only the second time, buoyed by a tight labor market and fast job growth in health care and education,” Amy writes. “Minimum-wage increases were also fueling faster wage growth for those at the bottom.”

But now millions of people have lost their jobs — and, in the process, their health insurance.

“Since March … job losses have disproportionately hit low-income workers and women, many of whom held service-sector jobs that were gutted by shutdown measures to help protect people from infection,” Amy writes. “Nearly 40 percent of households with income below $40,000 were laid off or furloughed by early April, according to the Federal Reserve.”

The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that 12 million people have lost health insurance received through their workplace or that of a family member. Some of those have been able to enroll in Medicaid — its rolls have risen by about 4 million during the pandemic — but others find it unaffordable.

 

 

ACOs in Medicare Shared Savings Program post third year of savings

Posted on by • Posted in Accountable Care Organization (ACO), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medical Group, Medicare, Medicare ACO, Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), Physician, Physician Practice Management • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/ACOS-medicare-shared-savings-health-affairs-seema-verma/585210/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-09-15%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:29671%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

PYA Releases Updated Medicare ACO Road Map White Paper - PYA

Dive Brief:

  • The Medicare Shared Savings Program saved the agency $1.19 billion in 2019, according to CMS performance results of 541 accountable care organizations released Monday.
  • This marks the third year of savings for the value-based care program and its largest yet, CMS Administrator Seema Verma wrote in a Health Affairs blog post Monday. ACOs taking on more risk continued to outperform those that didn’t, Verma wrote, including those under its Pathways to Success rule rolled out in December 2018.
  • ACOs in the Pathways to Success program generated net per-beneficiary savings of $169 compared to $106 for legacy track ACOs, Verma said, suggesting the policies are incentivizing ACOs to deliver more coordinated and efficient care.

Dive Insight:

ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals and other providers with payments tied to the cost and quality of care they provide beneficiaries. According to Verma’s post, the number of ACOs taking on downside financial risk has nearly doubled since the Pathways to Success program launched for those in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

New participation options under the rule require accountability for spending increases, generally after two years for new ACOs, and close evaluation of care quality. The new benchmarks and speed at which ACOs would need to take on downside risk was initially shot down by ACOs.

But CMS also created an option for “low-revenue” ACOs, generally run by physician practices rather than hospitals, allowing them an additional year before taking on downside risk for cost increases.

According to the blog post, physician-led ACOs performed better than hospital-led ACOs.

But the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations said only 5% of eligible ACOs took CMS’ offer on the Pathways to Success program structure early and instead chose to remain under the previous MSSP rules.

“To get program growth back on track, Congress needs to take a close look at the Value in Health Care Act, which makes several improvements to the Medicare ACO program and better incentivizes Advanced Alternative Payment Models,” trade group CEO Clif Gaus said in a statement.

Farzad Mostashari, CEO of the Aledade, pointed to physician-led ACOs out-performing hospital ACOs in a statement on the results. “What we need now is to help more practices participate in these models of care,” he said.

Low-revenue ACOs, typically physician-led, had per beneficiary savings of $201 compared to $80 per beneficiary for high-revenue ACOs. Low-revenue ACOs in the Pathways to Success program saved $189 per beneficiary while high-revenue ACOs in the program saved $155 per beneficiary, according to the 2019 performance results.

 

 

 

 

CMS kills controversial Medicaid fiscal accountability rule

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, America's Essential Hospitals, American Hospital Association (AHA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicaid, Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule, Medicaid Supplemental Payments • Leave a comment

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What You Need to Know About the Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule (MFAR) | KFF

Dive Brief:

  • CMS is axing its proposed Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule, agency head Seema Verma announced via Twitter late Monday afternoon, in a move quickly cheered by provider organizations.
  • The rule proposed last year would have increased federal oversight of how states fund their Medicaid programs and potentially resulted in funding cuts for the cash-strapped safety net insurance. Myriad providers, patient advocacy groups and lawmakers in both states and the halls of Congress opposed the rule as a result.
  • “We’ve listened closely to concerns that have been raised by our state and provider partners about potential unintended consequences of the proposed rule, which require further study. Therefore, CMS is withdrawing the rule from the regulatory agenda,” Verma said.

Dive Insight:

MFAR was designed to increase fiscal transparency in the 55-year-old Medicaid program, but was quickly met with a firestorm of controversy, with even bipartisan House and Senate members raising concerns it could lead to states being forced to choose between program cuts or raising taxes to replace the lost funding.

One estimate, conducted by Manatt Health for the American Hospital Association, estimated the changes proposed in the rule would cut Medicaid funding by almost $50 billion annually, shrinking the program by 8%.

“Hospitals and health systems will be greatly relieved when the proposed rule is formally withdrawn,” AHA EVP Tom Nickels said in a statement.

Bruce Siegel, CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, a lobby representing hospitals serving a disproportionate amount of vulnerable patients, called CMS’ decision “wise and welcome … especially as state budgets and providers strain under the heavy financial burden and economic fallout of COVID-19.”

Medicaid is jointly funded by the states and the federal government. Generally, CMS matches every dollar states spend at rates that vary depending on the state, its covered services and its population. There are no limits for how much federal funding a state can receive, and snowballing spending in Medicaid has resulted in concerns about cost control.

Medicaid spending swelled from $456 billion in 2013 to $576 billion in 2016, per CMS data, mostly due to an expanding federal share.

The most acute worries on the federal side stemmed from supplemental payments, or payments state Medicaid agencies give to providers for going above and beyond routine care, normally for high-need patients or those in underserved areas.

Supplemental payments to healthcare providers have increased from 9.4% of all other payments in 2010 to 17.5% in 2017, according to CMS, and are generally uneven across state lines, contributing to geographic funding disparities.

Oversight agencies, including the Government Accountability Office and the Office of the Inspector General, flagged the growth in payments and called for stronger Medicaid oversight in a series of reports from 2006 to 2015.

As a result, CMS proposed the MFAR rule in November 2019. If finalized, it would require states to report Medicaid payment and financing data at the individual provider level, instead of an aggregate, and establish definitions for “base” and “supplemental” payments. It would also have allowed CMS to sunset existing supplemental payment methodologies after up to three years, requiring states to get approval for a longer period, and close financing loopholes that might allow states to re-use federal Medicaid dollars to fund additional payments.

At the outset, CMS attempted to stamp out criticisms the rule could winnow Medicaid funding. “Alarmist estimates that this rule, if finalized, will suddenly remove billions of dollars from the program and threaten beneficiary access are overblown and without credibility,” Verma wrote in a blog post on the proposal in February.

But the rule received more than 4,000 public comments, most of them negative. The swirling concerns about unintended consequences, especially as COVID-19 exacerbates worries about care access, have now brought CMS back to the drawing board on Medicaid fiscal accountability.

As of late Monday, MFAR remained on the Federal Register.

Other actions from the Trump administration to overhaul Medicaid have faced similar backlash, including unpopular efforts to instill requirements linking coverage to work hours and an early 2020 push to cap federal funding for states in exchange for wider latitude in program administration.

 

 

 

 

Drug pricing politics aren’t dead

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Election, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Executive Orders, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Prices, Medicare, Out of Pocket Expenses, Prescription Drugs, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-vitals-319d5198-f7a8-401f-9b00-26118ca0b966.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top

Ending The Cycle Of Drug Price Hikes, Death And Outrage | Cognoscenti

President Trump released an executive order yesterday ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to begin the process of limiting what Medicare pays for prescription drugs relative to other countries.

Why it matters: It’s September of an election year. That means that this executive order is, at best, a statement of Trump’s intention to keep trying to achieve something big on drug prices should he get a second term.

  • But given that he’s had four years already to act on what was also a big issue in 2016, there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of this ever translating into official policy.
  • “President Trump’s executive order on drug pricing does not by itself do anything. It has to be followed up by regulations, which will take time. Trump has a history of bold talk on drug prices, only to pull back when it comes to putting actual regulations in place,” the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Larry Levitt tweeted.

Details: The order calls for Medicare to receive the “most-favored-nation” price for certain drugs.

  • This price is defined as “the lowest price, after adjusting for volume and differences in national gross domestic product, for a pharmaceutical product that the drug manufacturer sells in a member country of the [OECD] that has a comparable per-capita gross domestic product.”

The bottom line: Trump and Joe Biden have both pitched aggressive drug pricing policies — a good reminder that once we get the pandemic under control, the issue is bound to become front-and-center again.

 

 

 

 

Cartoon – 2020 Labor Day Picnic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Coronavirus, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economic Stimulus, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough Pay, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Happy Labor Day, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

Double Take 'Toons: Happy Labor Day! : NPR

Cartoon – Get a Job, Buddy!

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Cartoon, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Employee Benefits, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

Labor Day | Search results for "lab" | SpringerCreative.com: Editorial Cartoons

An Unpleasant Surprise

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Balance Billing, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Lobbyist, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Pandemic, Private Equity, Rev Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle, Surprise Bills, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

An Unpleasant Surprise

An Unpleasant Surprise - Tradeoffs

Surprise medical bills have become a major issue for Americans, but federal legislation to protect consumers continues to stall. Is Congress getting closer to halting this practice?

Listen to the full episode below, read the transcript or scroll down for more information.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3RyYWRlb2Zmcw/episode/YTQzMDkzOGYtY2Q3MS00ZTU0LWI0ZTAtZGIyMGM3YWQ0ZTk4?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRrfOb48zrAhXvmnIEHT-bBvgQkfYCegQIARAF&hl=en

The Basics: The Scope of the Problem

Surprise bills can occur when patients with insurance unknowingly receive care from an out-of-network provider while at an in-network facility (such as a bill from an anesthesiologist for a scheduled surgery).

That provider is not bound by a set rate negotiated with an insurer and may charge more for a service than the insurer is willing to pay, and patients can end up on the hook for the difference.

It is difficult to capture the full extent of the problem, but research shows that surprise bills, also called balance bills, occur often, and have only been increasing in frequency and size over the past few years. 

42% of hospital and ER visits may come with an unexpected charge
$2,000 average size of a surprise bill for a hospital visit
66% of Americans fear surprise bills
80% of Americans support surprise bill protections

The Source: Who’s To Blame?

Physicians

Hospitals employ some physicians directly, but many also contract with speciality physician groups of surgical assistants, anesthesiologists, radiologists, emergency medicine doctors and pathologists who may not be in the same insurance networks as the hospital. This is why most surprise bills occur. Research shows that private equity firms also play an important role, buying up speciality physician groups and using surprise billing as a core part of their business model.

Insurers

Insurers often take a lot of heat for the price of health care, but they play a more limited role in surprise billing. They can create narrow networks that leave hospitals or doctors out and open the door to balance billing. Insurers also do a poor job of maintaining accurate in-network provider directories, which means patients may think they’re choosing an in-network doctor when they are not.

Hospitals

While surprise bills from hospitals are less common than from physicians, they do occur when, for instance, a hospital is not in a patient’s network, but the patient is rushed there because of an emergency.

Ambulances

Air and ground ambulances rides are another source of surprise bills. One analysis showed that air ambulances resulted in median potential surprise bills of almost $21,700.

The Fixes: The Legislation Landscape

Federal Proposals

Over the past two years, Congress has considered at least four bipartisan bills to protect patients from surprise charges, but all four have stalled. The proposals offer different approaches to determine how much insurers will pay out-of-network providers. These bills typically address the problem by adopting a payment standard, arbitration process or a hybrid of the two.

Payment Standard

Insurers reimburse providers for out-of-network bills based on a set amount. Most bills propose using established in-network rates.

Arbitration

This process requires an insurer and provider to submit payment offers to a neutral party who makes the final call.

Hybrid

This approach combines the payment standard with arbitration to resolve disputes. An insurer pays a set amount, and if the provider disagrees, it can initiate arbitration.

State Laws

With federal solutions at a standstill, 30 states have passed varying levels of protections from surprise billing. As of July, 2020, 16 states have more comprehensive protections, which ensure that insured patients are only responsible for paying in-network costs, even when receiving care from out-of-network providers or emergency services at an out-of-network facility. Georgia was the latest state to pass such a law in July 2020. The other 14 states offer far more limited protections.

But even states with comprehensive protections cannot protect all patients from surprise medical bills. States are not able to regulate job-based coverage that falls under a federal law known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which applies to most employer sponsored insurance. These patients remain vulnerable to surprise medical bills until Congress takes action to ban the practice.

Click on the map below for an interactive map from the Commonwealth Fund that details each state’s protections.

State Balance-Billing Protections | Commonwealth Fund

The Sticking Point: Will Congress Pass Protections?

Despite strong bipartisan support for protecting patients from surprise bills, disagreement comes over how much physician groups should charge and how much insurers should pay. Essentially, resolving this issue may mean Congress has to pick sides.

As a result, stakeholders such as hospitals and private equity-backed physician groups, in particular, have pushed back on federal legislation, arguing that banning surprise billing will cripple their bottom line. These equity-backed physician groups have powerful lobbying groups, and in 2019, spent at least $5 million to persuade lawmakers to halt the legislation.

The pandemic has increased the risk that patients will unknowingly receive care from an out-of-network provider or at an out-of-network facility. The Trump administration tried to limit surprise bills for those in need of COVID-19 treatment by banning hospitals and providers that receive money from its Provider Relief Fund from sending balance bills to patients. But this approach leaves significant gaps and has had mixed success.