Rep. Steve Helms, R-Springfield, wants you to know how much your health care is going to cost. His bill would require health care providers to share “good faith estimates” of costs before providing services.
“We’ve been conditioned as patients to believe our doctors have their best interests at heart,” he told the House Insurance Policy Committee during a public hearing Wednesday. “If people don’t know how much they’re spending, how do they know if they’re getting a good deal?”
His bill, House Bill 1415, would cap health care provider rates at the rates paid by the government-run Medicare and Medicaid programs, unless certain conditions were met. For example, for-profit providers would be limited to billing the Medicare amount to uninsured or self-pay patients if the provider didn’t first offer an estimate of the price of a health care service that costs more than $500.
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