Bill Cassidy

Mr. President, Greeting · 11 wordsI rise in support of the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act.Greeting Reasoning · 57 wordsFree markets empower people to live freely. When there is information held by a monopoly which cannot--and I, the consumer, can’t figure out what that information is, it takes away my freedom of choice; it takes away my economic freedom because I am going to end up paying a price perhaps far higher than what I should. Claims · 76 wordsRight now, that is happening. People providing healthcare don’t have to provide the pricetag to the employer paying for the insurance or the employee who may be accessing that care in their deductible or outside the policy. It is impacting people. Mortgage and health insurance--the price of being insured can be $29,000 a year for a family of four--$29,000 a year if you include the deductible with the cost of the premium, including the employer’s share.¹ Reasoning · 43 wordsSo what we are trying to do is do something about that by giving the patient the power, giving her economic freedom by saying: This is how much it costs at this place, and this is how much it costs at that place. Claims · 51 wordsLet’s put a point on it. A pediatrician orders an x ray for a child, a chest x ray. If you go down the hall, it may cost $500, and if you go across the street, it may cost $75. Right now, it is incredibly difficult for that mother to know. Reasoning · 63 wordsWhat we imagine is that with this information being made available, it would be made available not just to those who would pull the information together, but they, in turn, would make it available for the mom with the baby, and she could say: Oh, chest x ray for my child--$500 here and $75 across the street. I am going across the street. Claims · 19 wordsI can promise you, when you do that, the place charging $500 is going to begin lowering the rate. Positioning · 8 wordsThis is about doing something positive for patients.Positioning Claims · 92 wordsSenators Marshall and Hickenlooper and the HELP Committee majority and minority staff put together the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, ²and, again, it gives the patient power. As Roger pointed out, it passed 21 to 1 out of the HELP Committee--bipartisan support to give patients power.³ I will give you one more example. Ten years ago, a friend of mine told me--this was 10 years ago--that if he converted atrial fibrillation in his office, it cost $130.⁵ If you went to the hospital and had the same procedure done, it was $13,000.⁶ Reasoning · 42 wordsNow, shouldn’t the patient know? Because even if she is only paying a 20-percent copay, 20 percent of $130 is a lot better than 20 percent of $13,000. This could be the difference between a family able to pay their other bills. Claims · 111 wordsUltimately, this will lower premiums because obviously if the cost of healthcare goes down, the cost of premiums should go down.Logical leapUnearned certainty It gives employers access to deidentified health claims data so that if, by the way, the insurance--if the doctor is charging $30,000 but is only paid $3,000 but the insurer bills the business $10,000, the business should know that.⁴ They paid a lot more than what the doctor charged. The business owner should know that, and right now, the business owner cannot know that. The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act is the first step to delivering what Americans asked for: healthcare they can afford, control in their hands, economic freedom. The ask · 23 wordsIf Congress is serious about decreasing healthcare costs, we should pass this by unanimous consent today and send it to the President’s desk.Off point Procedure · 4 wordsI yield the floor.Procedure