Final month, the Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis-based non-profit United States of Care (USofCare) launched its state legislative wrap-up report for 2024. USofCare’s evaluation of the 2024 legislative classes revealed three tendencies meant to handle the healthcare affordability disaster: superior insurance policies that promote hospital accountability, defending and increasing entry to well being protection, and alternatives to innovate and enhance healthcare affordability.
The report said that legislators view rising hospital costs as the primary driver of the affordability disaster. “State legislatures pursued bipartisan options to extend hospital accountability by limiting the flexibility of well being methods and hospitals to consolidate, defending folks from the damaging impacts of already consolidated methods, and imposing necessities that sure hospitals give again to the communities they serve.” Pink and purple state legislatures noticed success with proposals to rein in hospital costs.
“Oregon’s Well being Care Market Oversight program and the Massachusetts Well being Coverage Fee’s transaction overview initiative served as fashions for different states to comply with,” the report said. Healthcare transaction oversight permits for overview and approval situations that look at the impact of transactions on customers.
New York and Tennessee targeting options to guard folks from consolidated well being methods by contract clauses between well being methods and insurance coverage corporations.
Sixteen states checked out legislations that regulate facility charges. In accordance with the report, “Current polling exhibits that 74% of voters assist limiting or proscribing facility charges, whereas 81% of voters assist requiring that facility charges be disclosed to sufferers upfront earlier than they’re seen.”
Twenty-six states thought of laws concerning medical debt, together with proposals to limit wage garnishment, cap cost plans, and ban medical debt from credit score experiences.
The report talked about that state legislatures expanded eligibility for present well being protection applications to scale back protection gaps and defend protection for essential healthcare.
In accordance with the report, “to handle the challenges that undocumented immigrants face, a number of states thought of state-funded public insurance coverage.”
Many states additionally sought to enhance maternal well being, cut back disparities, and enhance protection for pregnant folks by Medicaid postpartum protection extension. The report highlighted Arkansas as the one state not authorizing this extension.
The report said that healthcare spending within the U.S. is projected to succeed in $4.9 trillion by 2024. “Plenty of state legislatures pursued insurance policies to develop new low-cost medical insurance protection choices to offer people and their households with reliable protection. Moreover, state policymakers have explored reforms to make healthcare extra reasonably priced for his or her residents by options that defend folks from shock medical payments and medical debt, set price development targets, and improve prescription drug affordability.”
Some states created their very own reasonably priced protection choices. In Colorado, for instance, 80,655 folks had been enrolled within the Colorado Public Well being Insurance coverage Choice. Different states explored versatile insurance policies, corresponding to Medicaid buy-ins, to satisfy the wants of their residents.
In accordance with the report, “Early outcomes of Medicaid redetermination processes have sparked legislators’ curiosity to find efficient approaches to protect well being care entry for the hundreds of thousands of people shedding their Medicaid protection whereas additionally addressing the wants of the remaining underinsured and uninsured populations.”
Vermont was talked about within the report for instance of legislators contemplating a proposal for a public possibility for small companies. Since small companies are much less prone to provide insurance coverage protection, a state-supported public possibility might assist cut back protection gaps and permit businessesF to broaden their profit packages.
The report said that one in three adults reported the shortcoming to afford prescribed medicine. Many state legislators have carried out methods to decrease prices. Some have created prescription drug affordability boards, set value caps, or reformed pharmacy profit supervisor (PBM) practices.
USofCare concluded that voters throughout get together traces overwhelmingly assist insurance policies to curb hospital costs and implement transparency in healthcare billing. The non-profit expects policymakers to proceed to push for equity-centered insurance policies.
