Senate Health Committee Leaders Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Reduce Health Care Costs

WASHINGTON, June 19, 2019 — Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) today introduced S.1895, the Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019 — bipartisan legislation to deliver better health care at lower cost. Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray announced that the committee will vote on the legislation on June 26, 2019.

“The single issue I hear most about from Tennesseans is, ‘What are you going to do about the health care costs I pay for out of my own pocket?’ Well, we've got an answer,” said Chairman Alexander. “This legislation will reduce what Americans pay out of their pockets for health care in three major ways: First, it ends surprise billing; second, it creates more transparency — you can’t lower your health care costs until you know what your health care actually costs. And third, it increases prescription drug competition to help bring more lower cost generic and biosimilar drugs to patients. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate health committee to mark up this legislation next week before sending it to the full Senate for consideration.”

“People across the country have been facing impossible decisions to afford the care they need and are counting on us to act. So I’m glad my Republican colleagues decided to listen to families and join Democrats at the negotiating table to work on these bipartisan steps to help lower health care costs, end surprise billing, respond to issues like the maternal mortality crisis, vaccine hesitancy, and obesity, and more,” said Senator Murray. “But this must be a first step, not a last one. I hope Republicans will build on this momentum by joining us at the table on bigger health care issues too—like repairing the damage from President Trump’s health care sabotage and protecting people with pre-existing conditions.”

Since last Congress, the Senate health committee has held five hearings on ways to reduce health care costs and four hearings on the cost of prescription drugs. In May, Alexander and Murray released a draft of this legislation for discussion, receiving over 400 comments. The Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019 is composed of nearly three dozen specific provisions from at least 16 Republican senators and 14 Democrat senators.

Read the text of the legislation here.

Read the Section by Section of the legislation here.

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