Congress has ambitious agenda tackling health care costs
Associated PressWASHINGTON — Lawmakers are trying to set aside their irreconcilable differences over the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and work to reach bipartisan agreement on a more immediate health care issue, lowering costs for people who already have coverage. “Frankly, the issue is so urgent for Americans who are facing increasing drug costs that to us it’s really not about who gets the credit,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo. “It’s about what kind of relief we can give to consumers.” She serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has a role in shaping the legislation. “The first step is we pass a progressive bill in the House and then we see what the Senate takes,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. “We’ve got to do that as a first step, and then we’ve got to negotiate for as much as we can get, but we have to pass the bill we ran on.” —Medicare “Inflation Rebate” Senators of both parties and key lawmakers in the House are looking at requiring drugmakers to pay rebates to the government if the prices of medications covered by Medicare escalate beyond a yet-to-be-determined measure of inflation. —Surprise Medical Bills Alexander’s committee has approved legislation that would hold patients harmless from “surprise” out-of-network bills that can run to tens of thousands of dollars. Alexander said the legislation won’t solve every health care problem, but added, “You don’t have to preach the whole Bible in one sermon — you can do one important thing at a time.”