Employer Groups Applaud Bill that Aims to Spur Competition in Healthcare

In a letter to lawmakers on Monday, employer advocacy groups applauded the introduction of the Healthy Competition for Better Care Act, a bill that aims to increase competition in healthcare.

The letter was signed by the American Benefits Council, the ERISA Industry Committee, the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, the Purchaser Business Group on Health, the Silicon Valley Employers Forum and the Small Business Majority.

The bill was introduced in the Senate last week by Jon Husted (R-Ohio). Reps. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), Rick Allen (R-Georgia), Donald Davis (D-North Carolina) and Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina) previously introduced a companion bill in the House.

Specifically, the Healthy Competition for Better Care Act aims to improve competition in healthcare by banning several types of anticompetitive contracts between insurers and healthcare providers. It would prohibit all-or-nothing clauses that force insurers to include every provider in their network, anti-steering and anti-tiering clauses that limit employers’ ability to direct patients to lower-cost or higher-quality providers, most-favored-nation clauses that require insurers to receive the lowest price and can drive prices up overall and gag clauses that restrict sharing cost information.

“The cost of health care has outpaced inflation for more than two decades. That is a staggering fact that Americans feel. My bill creates incentives for real competition in health care to drive down costs for patients,” Husted said in a statement.

In the letter, which was addressed to the lawmakers who introduced the bills, the employer groups stated that employers have been concerned about the rapid consolidation of health systems for some time.

“Across the country, provider systems are using their dominant positions to impose restrictive and often unfair contractual terms that limit network flexibility, reduce access to high-value providers, and drive up costs without improving quality,” the organizations stated in the letter. “These trends undermine employers’ ability to design benefit plans that prioritize value, support innovation, and deliver high-quality care.

“Your bill meaningfully addresses these issues by supporting incentives for patients who choose high-quality, lower-cost providers; allowing employers and insurers to contract with hospitals and providers without being required to enter additional agreements with affiliated systems; and permitting health insurance issuers to negotiate their own rates with providers who are not parties to a specific contract,” the organizations continued.

They added that the provisions would bring more balance to healthcare markets, increase transparency and improve access to high-value care.

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