Bipartisan senators urge surprise billing deal’s inclusion in year-end package

A group of 27 senators in both parties is urging Senate leadership to include a deal to protect patients from massive “surprise” medical bills in a year-end legislative package now being negotiated.

Leadership of four committees in the House and Senate announced a deal on the legislation last Friday after months of negotiations, but the fate of the bill still hangs in the balance as it is unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will agree to include it in the final package.

“There will never be a broader bipartisan, bicameral solution to ending surprise medical billing and we should deal with it now,” the 27 senators write to McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), who has already announced his support for the deal. “Patients cannot wait any longer.”

The letter is led by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Other Republicans signing it include Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the former No. 2 Senate Republican, as well as Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Todd Young (Ind.) and Mitt Romney (Utah).

McConnell has not commented on whether he supports the deal. A senior Republican aide said over the weekend that Republicans were “reviewing the proposal.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pushing for it to be included, and the White House also supports it, calling for it be passed “swiftly.”

The legislation would protect patients from getting stuck with bills for thousands of dollars for common situations like going to the emergency room and later finding out one of the doctors was outside the patient’s insurance network.

The measure has provoked fierce lobbying from powerful health care industry groups, though, adding obstacles to passage.

The final measure was moved closer to the position of doctor and hospital groups, who warned that an earlier version would lead to cuts to their payments.

The American Medical Association, the country’s leading doctors group, is still opposing the measure, though, according to a letter to Congress obtained by The Hill.

The letter warned that small physician practices might not be able to receive “fair compensation” under the arbitration process the bill lays out to determine how much insurers will pay doctors once patients are taken out of the middle.

From the other side of the industry fight, a coalition of insurers and employer groups is also opposed, saying the deal is a “gift to private equity firms” that own doctor staffing companies.

The health care consumer group Families USA is urging passage, though. The 27 senators also said the deal provides $18 billion in savings that can be used to pay for extending other programs like community health center funding.

“With the holidays just around the corner and families still reeling from the churn of COVID-19’s unrelenting health and economic devastation, they cannot afford to wait any longer for relief from surprise medical bills,” said Jen Taylor, Families USA’s senior director of federal relations. “They need peace of mind that they will not encounter these outrageous and unfair bills ever again.”