Council calls on Congress to lower health care costs through greater transparency, competition

Two House committees discuss health care affordability

WASHINGTON, DC – The American Benefits Council is urging Congress to act now to pass bipartisan policies that lower health costs for employers and working families by addressing the root causes of rising health care costs.

In written statements to the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee, the American Benefits Council urged lawmakers to “advance bipartisan policies that target the root causes of rising health care costs, namely a lack of transparency and competition and misaligned incentives that drive higher-cost care.” Both committees held hearings today focusing on health care affordability, featuring leaders from the health insurance industry.

Providing health coverage to more than 180 million Americans, employers are deeply concerned about rising health care cost that are placing an increasingly large burden on American employers and workers. The Council’s written statement emphasizes that hospital spending is the largest health spending category in the United States, and hospital prices are a primary driver of rising health care costs for employers and workers. The statement also highlights that employers remain deeply concerned about prescription drug costs.

In formal statements for the record in these hearings, the Council urged Congress to take prompt and decisive action to enact policies to address high health care costs.

“While employers continue their efforts to lower health care costs, federal legislative solutions are needed to create a more competitive, transparent health care marketplace and to remove payment distortions that drive higher-cost care. Employers want Congress to act now to lower health care costs,” the Council’s statement said.

Specifically, the Council strongly supports legislation to:

• Ensure fair and transparent hospital billing practices (such as the bipartisan Fair Billing Act (S. 2497)).
• Provide greater transparency and oversight of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
• Expand site-neutral payment reforms.
• Ensure greater transparency in the health care system.
• Restrict anti-competitive contracting provisions (through legislation like the bipartisan Healthy Competition for Better Care Act (H.R. 6248)).
• Modernize the 340B drug pricing program (as outlined in the Council’s February 2025 report, Growth Unchecked: A Call to Action for Policymakers to Reform 340B, to Stop It from Driving Up Health Care Costs for Employers, Working Families and Taxpayers).

The Council is very encouraged that the bipartisan, bicameral appropriations package released on January 20 includes several such measures, including provisions to require hospital billing transparency and greater accountability from PBMs to employers.

“We remain committed to promoting policies that address health care affordability at the root level and we urge policymakers to do so through meaningful, bipartisan action,” said Ilyse Schuman, senior vice president, health and paid leave policy.

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