Senator proposes federal curbs on balance billing

Modern Healthcare: A Senate proposal is taking aim at hospital balance billing—a practice that has caused sticker-shock reverberations across the country and sparked increasing public outcry.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is spearheading a six-member bipartisan policy group seeking to address the escalating public share of healthcare costs and boost transparency. As a first step on Monday, he announced the discussion draft of a bill that would tweak the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, in order to restrict patients' financial responsibility for out-of-network emergency department care.

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