One or more Senate committees could be bringing in health insurance company chief executive officers for a new round of hearings.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, are asking the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to organize the hearings.
Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sanders, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee, wrote in a joint letter that “it is time for our committees to hold the chief executives of the major health insurance companies accountable for their greed.”
Wyden and Sanders expressed concerns about high health insurance premiums, coverage denials, big CEO compensation packages, cash spent on stock buybacks, and insurer ownership of clinics and pharmacy benefit managers.
The senators noted that UnitedHealth Group has about 2,700 subsidiaries.
“A patient covered by United could see a doctor employed by United, receive a prescription from a United-owned mail-order pharmacy and have surgery performed at a facility owned by United. At every step of the way, United can extract profit from patients, all while side-stepping rules that establish minimum standards for how much revenue from insurance premiums must be spent on actual patient care,” the senators wrote.
Wyden and Sanders did not mention employers or the tax exclusion for employers’ health coverage costs.
The senators did point out that both the House Ways & Means Committee and the House Energy & Commerce Committee brought health insurance company CEOs in for hearings in January.
The senators also pointed out that Senate HELP Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-La.), has addressed concerns about the impact of high deductibles on patient care and that Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) has complained about high health insurance premiums.
What it means: Employers and benefits professionals could have new hearing videos to watch this summer. How much the hearings would focus on employer health benefits concerns is unclear.
The backdrop: Wyden and Sanders emphasized in their letter that the high cost of coverage and concerns about healthcare sector consolidation have been a bipartisan concern in the House.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) may be the Republican senator who has been the most visible critic of healthcare sector consolidation. Hawley, a member of the Senate HELP Committee, has crossed party lines to work with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), on bills that could break up some giant healthcare companies or make completing future deals more difficult.
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