Ask your Representatives to increase oversight to lower health care costs (HB 1508)

Ask your Representatives to increase oversight to lower health care costs (HB 1508)

Washington spends 20% of our state funds on health care every year – all while major health care companies continue to hike up their prices without regard for the impact on patients.

Our Health Care Cost Transparency Board is working to understand what’s driving health care spending, but it needs more authority to effect change. Legislators need to help the board access data to better understand how consumers are impacted by high costs and give the board the authority to impose consequences on the worst offenders.

Let’s get the Health Care Cost Transparency Board bill (HB 1508) out of the House!

Subject: Increase health care spending oversight and accountability: Please vote yes on HB 1508
Dear Legislator,

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Dear Representative,

I urge you to vote yes on HB 1508, an important bill that will increase oversight to lower health care costs in our state.

Everyone deserves to go to the doctor when they need to – without worrying about an exorbitant price tag. But right now, people are going bankrupt to pay for health care. Three in five recently surveyed Washingtonians said they’ve had trouble affording health care in the past year. And 400,000 people in our state are being chased by debt collectors for medical bills.

The legislature took a step in the right direction by creating the Health Care Cost Transparency Board in 2020 to improve price transparency and reduce health care cost growth. Our board is off to a good start but it lacks the authority to hold repeat outliers accountable when they charge too much.

This bill will strengthen our Health Care Cost Transparency Board by enabling it to:

- Put patients at the center by tracking consumer affordability challenges alongside aggregate spending
- Ensure true system transparency and fill data gaps by improving data collection authority
- Evaluate how factors like profit, surplus, and tax breaks contribute to spending
- Hold high price outliers accountable if it becomes clear their prices are repeatedly out of line 
Until we tackle health care spending, the costs for patients, workers, and business owners will continue to spiral out of control.

Please take a stand for health care affordability – vote yes on HB 1508.

Thank you,

The Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) manages this page. You can contact EOI at info@eoionline.org.

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