Lawmakers and industry leaders called for greater price transparency and reforms in the health care industry to lower costs on Thursday.
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Joel White, president of the Council for Affordable Health Care Coverage, spoke at an Axios-hosted event on Thursday. The group pointed to issues with the current health care system and proposed breaking up insurance and hospital monopolies.
“We don’t have functioning markets anymore,” White said. “That’s a reult of decades of policies and market consolidation that rewarded size and scale and higher costs.”
White said insurance costs have increased dramatically for small business owners due to the Affordable Care Act. He called for a small business health care plan and expanding health savings accounts to reduce rising costs for businesses.
White estimated prices were rising as much as 20% in markets where hospital monopolies exist. He called on Congress to break up the entities and help reform price controls that use anti-competitive behavior.
Blunt Rochester was hesitant to call for breaking up medical markets, but admitted large monopolies have formed in the country. She said the “One Big Beautiful Bill” cut $1 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid programs.
“First, we got to reverse those cuts,” Blunt Rochester said. “We have to reimagine how we pay for health care.”
She said she hopes people in the health care industry will be open to changes and upcoming reforms. She called for support to pass an updated Inflation Reduction Act, legislation passed during the Biden administration that invested in climate change mitigation and lower health care costs.
“Make sure our country has access to health care, that it’s easy to navigate, that we cut red tape and that incentives are aligned in a way that doesn’t just make some people rich,” Blunt Rochester said.
Smith praised the Working Families Tax Cut for providing $50 billion for rural health care access.
“It’s not prescribed very specifically,” Smith said. “I think that’s okay, I think thats getting folks to have discussions that need to be had.”
Smith also mentioned fraud prevention efforts across the country. He called for caution in investigations of fraud versus simple payment mistakes.
“We have to be careful there and not have punishements in place for something that was never intended,” Smith said.
He embraced the possibility of using AI technology to detect and prevent fraud and to embrace new health opportunities.
“We have to unleash technology so that we can deliver more access to health care across America,” Smith said. “I think to really get America healthier, we need to unleash technology.”