Disclosure of Healthcare Costs -- Passage HR 5378

Rodgers, R-Wash., motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended, that would extend, for just over two years, funding for several public health programs, including community health centers, and it includes a wide range of provisions intended to help reduce consumer health care and drug costs by increasing pricing transparency and requiring certain other actions. Among other provisions, it would require health insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers to regularly provide detailed information on prescription drug costs and the drug rebates they receive to provide pricing transparency, and it codifies and expands two sets of Trump administration pricing transparency rules — one dealing with hospital pricing transparency, which it extends to other medical facilities while incorporating new enforcement mechanisms, and the other focused on pricing transparency for employer-based group health plans and insurers. The bill would also prohibit certain pharmacy benefit manager pricing practices with respect to Medicaid, and it includes provisions intended to reduce health care costs for individuals, employer-sponsored health plans, and the federal government. To implement the bill's provisions, the measure would provide a total of $65 million for the Health and Human Services and Treasury departments, and $35 million for the Labor Department.