HB350, HB295 sees pushbacks from lawmakers over hospital price caps

DELAWARE- Delaware lawmakers this week made changes to HB350 by introducing a second bill, HB295 that seeks to address concerns raised by hospital systems in response to the price caps that would be imposed by HB350.

Changes include tying the hospital’s price cap to the consumer price index, having the price cap break out over a period of years, and expanding the time a hospital could be found to be non-compliant before actions are taken against it.

However, lawmakers against the bill say those changes still don’t address their concerns.

“HB 395 ties the hospital’s overall budget, not specifically, but the overall budget to the CPI increase, and the consumer price index is irrelevant. to a hospital price or health care costs increases,” said Rep. Valerie Jones Giltner.

Jones Giltner tells WMDT that in her role in healthcare administration, she saw first hand where costs were exploding in Delaware, but in-patient care was not one of the areas.

In  Statement to WMDT Giltner said:

” When the federal government faced this same problem in 2010 (Medical costs were increasing, they had a tidal wave of baby boomers about to become Medicare eligible, and Medicare was running out of funds), they didn’t take control of the hospital budgets. Instead they developed Obamacare and deployed a ‘push/pull’ incentive system. Hospitals submit metrics on quality, cost, patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction and in return either get more reimbursement with incentives OR get reimbursement recalled if they perform poorly.

Delaware data shows that healthcare costs were increasing in, Outpatient (including lab), Pharmacy, Long term care (and behavorial health), and Inpatient costs were actually decreasing.”

She tells us she hopes lawmakers on in the House and Senate focus on holding LabCorps and other independent walk-in locations accountable for their costs too, as they would not be impacted despite providing a large chunk of healthcare in Sussex County.