THE SOURCE BLOG

On October 21, the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Source on Healthcare Price and Competition hosted a webinar on steps that states are taking to foster more competitive health care markets and lower health care prices, featuring The Source Senior Health Policy Researcher Katie Gudiksen and state regulators from Connecticut and Oregon. The recording is now available to watch for free: Watch Recording Download Powerpoint Presentation (Katie Gudiksen) For more information, check out the 3-part Milbank Memorial Bank series authored by the Source team. The first brief called for collaboration of state and …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Oklahoma page. Oklahoma operates a volunteer all-payer claims database. Approximately 1 million people’s claims are in this database, accounting for about 25% of Oklahoma’s total population. The legislature also introduced legislation to promote price transparency and cost containment in recent terms, including protection against surprise billing and a Right to Shop program that …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Louisiana page. Louisiana has been active in legislative efforts to promote price transparency in health care. In recent terms, the state legislature introduced bills to tackle surprise billing by out-of-network specialists, proposing that patients should only be responsible for deductibles and copayment amounts that they would under the in-network terms of their insurance …

California is one of the leading states in healthcare antitrust enforcement. Following the footsteps of former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the antitrust lawsuit against northern California hospital giant Sutter Health, the new attorney general Rob Bonta continues to exercise the AG’s expansive authority with aggressive enforcement actions in the California provider market. Earlier in the summer, the AG’s office settled a lawsuit filed by Cedars-Sinai Health System and Huntington Memorial Hospital, with revised competitive impact conditions on the cross-market affiliation in Southern California to address potential harms …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Iowa page. Iowa has been active in introducing state market initiatives as part of the state’s healthcare reform efforts. In 2019, legislators pursued a bill establishing a single-payer system for the state. The proposed system, called the Healthy Iowa Program, would have provided comprehensive universal single-payer healthcare coverage and a healthcare cost control …

Increasingly, hospitals have merged to form dominant health systems that can exert market power and charge anticompetitive prices that increase health care prices and burden the economy. A recent series of Milbank Memorial Fund issue briefs by researchers from the Source for Healthcare Price on Competition identified specific state policies and practices that can deter health care provider concentration, including improved merger review, oversight of anticompetitive conduct, and bans on potentially anticompetitive contract terms that apply to health insurers and providers. On October 21 at 3 p.m., ET, the Milbank …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Kentucky page. The Kentucky legislature has consistently pursued legislation aimed at improving access to healthcare price information to help rein in costs. In recent terms, Kentucky has enacted a number of legislation pertaining to prescription drug cost transparency, with particular focus on pharmacy benefit managers, including a law that prohibits PBMs from requiring …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Pennsylvania page. Pennsylvania is a leader in antitrust enforcement of its healthcare provider market with a robust set of review protocol for nonprofit hospital transactions. The state attorney general has oversight authority which requires notice of all nonprofit health entity transactions with review and based on consideration of public interest and antitrust implications. …

This is part of a series of summaries that highlight notable legislation and initiatives in health policy and reform of all 50 states. Check back on The Source as we roll out additional states each week. See Idaho page. Idaho has stepped up its efforts to promote price transparency and control healthcare costs in recent legislative sessions. Signed into law in 2020, the Idaho Patient Act adds transparency to the medical billing process and protects consumers from unfair medical debt collection practices. The state legislature also made a notable effort …

This month, we are pleased to highlight two recent publications co-authored by health policy researchers from The Source. We specifically examine articles and reports discussing market consolidation including 1) viable practices state policymakers can implement to address provider market power, 2) a critical look at legislation targeting concentrated markets, 3) statistical reports analyzing health insurance market consolidation, and 4) a study on the quality of care in post-merger rural hospitals. In addition, we cover articles that examine public option health plans recently enacted in some states, proposals to improve compliance …