(June 30, 2026) - Federal legislative activity is in a holding pattern. The House remains in session this week, while the Senate has already left town for the traditional July 4th break. Last week, however, saw a flurry of activity on various health care issues we have been tracking all year, including Medicare Advantage, price transparency and the 340B Drug Pricing Program.
Last Thursday afternoon, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health marked up several health care bills and reported them to the full E&C Committee for further action. Notably, they reported the House version of the Seniors Timely Access to Care Act (H.R. 3514), a bill written and managed by Kansas Senator Roger Marshall. This bill is designed to bring needed transparency to the prior authorization practices of Medicare Advantage plans and to streamline the prior authorization process. The subcommittee also reported a large group of MA transparency bills related to pricing and marketing. We applaud the subcommittee for taking these steps and hope these bills continue toward final passage.
The subcommittee also marked up the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (H.R.9393). Under this bill, price transparency requirements currently for hospitals and other facilities would be codified and expanded. Hospitals would be required to post all standard charges publicly, consumer-friendly price lists for at least 300 shoppable services, associated National Provider Identifier information and an accuracy attestation. In a nod to providers' concerns, this bill would allow hospitals to use an online cost-estimator tool. The version reported to the full E&C Committee contains no Medicare site-neutral language. This bill was seen as one of the last vehicles in which this Congress has included such language.
While the Patients Deserve Price Tags bills (H.R.5582/S.2355) were not included on this docket, it is likely that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will mark up the “Price Tags” bill sometime in July. We remain actively engaged with Senator Marshall’s office regarding their interest in price transparency and believe there are a variety of opportunities to mitigate the operational challenges of this bill and align it more closely with the version now preferred by the House.
340B also reemerged in the news last week as Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) unveiled a discussion draft of his 340B for Patients Act. This bill jumps the gun on any bipartisan agreement being worked on by the group of six, which includes Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), even as the group’s work continues. Senator Cassidy is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and is also a lame-duck senator after losing his reelection bid. This likely stalls any activity toward a comprehensive solution for this session of Congress. Unfortunately, his bill is weighted heavily in favor of drug manufacturers. It fails to consider many concerns providers have about burdensome regulatory regimes and about one of the program's main purposes: enabling eligible facilities to stretch scarce resources to better serve their communities.
In general, the legislative outlook for passing complicated legislation looks bleak for the rest of this Congress. President Donald J. Trump has been instrumental in ending, or attempting to end, the political careers of enough Senators to no longer have a functional majority in that chamber. While the budget process will continue and will likely result in the passage of appropriations packages for fiscal year 2027, the upcoming midterm elections and divisions within the governing Republican party make additional legislation difficult.