Global Courant
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will deliver remarks from the White House Friday afternoon on the latest actions his administration is taking to reduce health care costs and limit so-called insurance waste costs for consumers.
Biden will speak from the East Room around 3:30 p.m. ET about the series of regulatory actions, which the White House announced in a fact sheet earlier today.
Among the government’s new efforts are rules that would close loopholes that would allow companies to offer “misleading insurance products that could discriminate based on pre-existing terms and conditions and trick consumers into buying products that offer little or no coverage when they need it the most,” said de Witte. said House.
Action by the Trump administration allowed insurance companies to take advantage of those loopholes, it added.
The Biden administration also announced new rules to further curb surprise medical bills, with millions of people receiving unexpected bills for health care they believed was in-network and covered by their insurance. The White House said these surprise bills could cost people an average of $750 to $2,600.
The administration said it will issue guidelines to make it clear that it is illegal under federal law for health plans that contract with hospitals to claim they are technically not in-network.
“Healthcare services provided by these providers are either out-of-network and subject to surprise billing protection,” the White House said, “or they are in-network and subject to the ACA’s annual cost-sharing restriction, which provides further protection.” offers.” consumers at an exorbitant out-of-pocket cost.”
The administration will also clarify that health plans and providers must make information about “facility costs” for care provided outside of hospitals, such as at a doctor’s office, available to consumers, the fact sheet said.
In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Treasury plan to work together to determine consumer protection compliance for health care providers when enrolling patients for third-party medical credit cards.
The White House said these new actions are part of the president’s economic vision, recently dubbed “Bidenomics.” His administration has tried to address extra fees that have led to high costs for consumers in other industries, such as when people travel or order tickets to a concert or sporting event.
