COVID Aid Talks Omit Employer Health Policy Priorities
Alexander Spatari
Members of Congress released several competing COVID-19 relief proposals this week, reigniting stalled talks on passing legislation by year’s end, but the proposals so far do not contain employer health care priorities such as ending surprise medical bills, easing rules for health and dependent care FSAs, and taking steps to control health care costs. While plan sponsor groups continue to push for these and other changes, whether congressional leaders and the White House can strike a deal in the coming days and whether any health care items might be included remains to be seen.
In a sign that the months-long partisan standoff may be easing, House and Senate Democratic leaders are signaling support for a roughly $900 billion compromise aid proposal offered on Tuesday by a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers. The measure seeks a middle route between House Democrats’ last $2.4 trillion version of the “HEROES Act” and Senate Republicans’ recent $650 billion proposal.
The new centrist proposal, which would run through March 2021, omits employer-focused health care provisions but includes some measures sought by both parties such as financial help for state and local governments, legal protections for businesses and other entities, additional funding for the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, and an extension of unemployment insurance.
Congressional leaders will seek changes and additions to the proposal, however, and employers are pushing for a number of health care-related additions, including protecting patients from surprise medical bills. More than 60 leading employer organizations wrote to Congress last week in a joint letter urging protections that use a local, market-based payment to settle payment disputes with out-of-network medical providers.
In addition, some of the same groups sent Congress a separate letter last week calling for action on an array of bipartisan provisions that would lower health care costs, improve transparency, and eliminate certain anti-competitive practices in the health care system. Many of these provisions, including an employer-backed proposal to ban surprise bills, are drawn from legislation passed last year by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Lawmakers hope to attach any COVID aid to a full-year spending bill they are trying to pass before the government’s current funding expires on December 11. Given limited time for negotiations and lawmakers’ focus on higher-profile relief measures, however, action on employers’ health care priorities may well have to wait until next year.
President-elect Joe Biden is urging Congress to reach a COVID aid deal before the end of the year, but has said, “Any package passed in the lame duck session is likely to be -- at best -- just a start.”