Overheard on Capitol Hill: Hospital leaders getting upbraided over ‘charging an insane amount for care’

At a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee this week, a handful of health-system CEOs took withering fire, most of it from Republican lawmakers.

Committee chair Jason Smith (R-Missouri) tipped off the tenor to come in his opening remarks. 

Decrying the “corporatization” of American hospitals and health systems, Smith suggested mergers and consolidations have been strengthening the strong players and marginalizing the weak ones, to the detriment of affordable care for all. 

“When hospitals have no competition, it’s no wonder that the sky seems to be the limit for prices,” Smith said. 

The dustup didn’t come from nowhere. In January members of the same committee grilled leaders of health insurance companies. 

“The entire healthcare system—hospitals, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, pharmacy middlemen—all bear responsibility for the high costs patients face,” Smith reiterated April 28. 

The organizing theme of the hearing was the increasing unaffordability of healthcare for many if not most Americans. 

A subset of that core was the continuing lack of transparency around hospital prices.  

For their part, the CEOs were on the defensive but not unprepared. 

For that matter, much of the bickering involved—surprise!—members of the two political parties trading barbs. 

Here’s a roundup of notable quotes from the hearing. 

‘We talk about price transparency a lot. It’s important to every patient, and you’re unsure whether they would know what the facility fee is before getting a colonoscopy at your facility.’— Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tennessee)
 

‘We’re committed to making sure patients know [our] price[s].’—New York-Presbyterian CEO Brian Donley
 

‘Our communities are better off with hospitals in them, but large health systems have taken advantage of that reality. Simply put, hospitals are charging an insane amount for care.’—Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri)
 

‘How can you justify facility fees on outpatient facilities when there is no meaningful difference in the care delivered or quality of care?’—Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida) 
 

‘When patients have reliable coverage, they have greater access and can seek care earlier, manage chronic conditions more effectively and avoid costly emergency interventions.’—Sam Hazen, HCA Healthcare CEO 
 

‘Many hospital systems continue to raise their prices at rates that dwarf inflation while also sticking patients with high bills with layers of opaque fees. Instead of blaming others, the hospital industry should stop their anticompetitive consolidation, opaque billing practices and unaffordable price hikes that continue to drive Americans’ premium costs higher.’—Chris Bond, senior VP of communications at AHIP (formerly America’s Health Insurance Plans)
 

‘Republicans are desperate to distract from their record of failure. They ripped coverage from more than 15 million people and pushed hundreds of hospitals to the brink—and now they want credit as states scramble for scraps from their Ugly Law’s so-called rural hospital fund, a meager lifeline that won’t undo their damage and wouldn’t be needed if Republicans hadn’t gutted the system in the first place.’—Rep. Richard Neal (D-Massachusetts)
 

‘Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats. Hospitals blame insurers and drug companies. Insurers blame hospitals and drug companies. Drug companies blame pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals. But when it comes to fixing the system, the only thing you all agree on, really, is that it’s some other people, other issues, that are [causing] the increase [in costs].’—Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri)
 

• Sources: American Journal of Managed Care, CNBC, The Hill, Politico, The Washington Post