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Oklahoma Senate Committee Keeps Alive Several Bills to Address Health Care Costs

An Oklahoma Senate committee on Monday kept alive several bills to address rising health care costs.

Senate Bill 1620 would let pharmacists relay patients’ requests for a breakdown of their prescription drug costs to insurers, manufacturers and distributors. Sen. Rob Standridge said people want to know why their prescriptions cost as much as they do.

"This lets you know where all that money’s going. Now, if you’re paying $300 for insulin and pretty much all that money goes to the cost of that insulin, I’m sure you as a consumer would be fine. But consumers en masse would get bothered if $50 of that is going to the insulin and $200 is going to all sorts of people in the middle," Standridge said.

Standridge said having informed consumers will help keep costs in check.

Senate Bill 1646 would prohibit hospitals from reporting medical debt to credit bureaus or going to collections unless a patient agreed to the total cost of services ahead of time. Sen. Julie Daniels said she knows there are some issues to resolve with the bill, like unforeseen costs from doctors needing to resuscitate a patient during surgery, for example.

"But I would certainly hope this year to get started on some sort of meaningful reform that will help protect these citizens who find themselves suddenly facing collection agencies or have compromised their credit score because they were unaware of the full cost of the medical care they were going to receive," Daniels said.

The total costs would have to include services provided by a third-party provider in the same facility as the rest of a patient's care, as well as any out-of network costs.

Senate Bill 1575 would direct insurers to offer incentives for people to find lower-cost health care services, regardless of whether they’re in or out of network. Sen. Kim David wrote the bill and said she’s done it herself.

"I ended up needing some imaging, and I was able to — paid cash for it.  What I paid for the imaging was less than my deductible, and I saved my insurance a lot of money because the cost of me going to the hospital to have the same thing done would have cost my insurance company a lot more," David said.

David's bill to limit out-of-network billing also advanced Monday from the Senate Retirement and Insurance Committee. Bills must be passed out of a committee in their chamber of origin this week.

All bills, however, were passed with their titles off. Bills cannot become law without a title.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.