Three events Tuesday aim to move the conversation forward on rising health care costs, and all of them will be streamed live.
1. The House will hold its first hearing on surprise medical billing.
The Education and Labor Subcommittee hearing comes at a time when 1 in 5 emergency room visits results in a surprise medical bill for patients. In 2016, 1 in 7 patients in 37 states were hit by a surprise bill because they were treated by a doctor outside of their plan’s network, according to a Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) report. Experts including Christen Linke Young, a fellow at Brookings Institute, will testify.
Learn more about the hearing and the issue of surprise billing, and watch the livestream at 9:15 a.m. CT/10:15 a.m. ET.
2. The House will also hold a hearing on the rising cost of insulin.
Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee approved six drug pricing bills, including the CREATES Act — all of which will now advance to the full committee for consideration. This week, the House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee holds a hearing titled “Priced Out of a Lifesaving Drug: The Human Impact of Rising Insulin Costs.”
Although insulin has been around for nearly 100 years, its price in the U.S. has steadily climbed, resulting in patients rationing treatments. Witnesses include Kasia J. Lipska of Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation.
Watch the livestream at 9:30 a.m. CT/10:30 a.m. ET.
3. Our Co-Chair John Arnold will address the crisis of health care costs in America.
Arnold will join fellow experts to discuss commonsense reforms for rising health prices at the West Health Summit, which will be streamed live.
Other speakers include David Mitchell of Patients for Affordable Drugs, profiled here, Andy Slavitt of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Elizabeth Rosenthal, editor of Kaiser Health News who recently wrote about the “bizarre logic of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry” in the U.S. for the New York Times.
Register for free and watch the livestream starting at 8 a.m. CT/9 a.m. ET.
Arnold will go on at 12:45 p.m. CT/1:45 p.m. ET, and you can follow along on Twitter using the hashtags #HCIDC and #HCCosts.
