WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), medical doctor and member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, today met with President Trump at the White House to discuss solutions to end surprise medical bills, a priority Dr. Cassidy highlighted in his white paper on how to make health care affordable again.
“Patients should be the reason for the care, not the excuse for the bill,” said Dr. Cassidy. “President Trump is concerned about that single mom sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay her health care expenses. Along with my colleagues, we will be putting forward bipartisan legislation to get this done.”
In September, Dr. Cassidy, along with U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Todd Young (R-IN), and former Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), members of the bipartisan Senate health care price transparency working group, released a discussion draft to protect patients from surprise medical bills. The draft bill intended to jumpstart discussions in Congress about how to best stop the use of balanced billing to charge patients for emergency treatment or treatment provided by an out-of-network provider at an in-network facility, an issue the Trump administration is also passionate about solving.
Dr. Cassidy, Bennet, Young, Carper, and U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sought answers from health care providers and insurers in February as part of their ongoing effort to develop bipartisan legislation to end surprise medical bills.
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