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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 12, 2017 11:13 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Bryan Cutler |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Reauthorizing and Modernizing Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) |
| In the near future, I will be introducing multipart legislation that will modernize the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4). In 1986, PHC4 was created to be an independent state agency which collected data on health care costs in order to stem the rapidly growing cost of health care procedures. This information is provided through PHC4's website to individual consumers and group purchasers of health service, however, the information is often exceptionally delayed and presented in a format that is not easily usable by the average consumer. Initially this session I sent out a cosponsor ship memo which reauthorized PHC4 with some changes to provide more flexibility to the information and reports that are issued by the Council. Additionally, PHC4's enacting legislation needs to be updated to reflect the use of teleconferencing technology to achieve meeting quorums without the cost of providing transportation to the members of the board. Also, the information provided by the health care facilities to PHC4 is based on the billed amount of the services provide and not necessarily based on the amount received by the health care facility for services rendered. This difference in billing rate vs actual payment rate leaves the consumer with little usable information in order to make a more informed health care decision. After reviewing this bill with stakeholders I have included at their request two other sections to the bill. CO-SPONSORS of the first co-sponsorship memo were as follows; BAKER, DRISCOLL, PICKETT, RYAN, MILLARD, ROZZI, GROVE, HARRIS, MOUL, ZIMMERMAN, WARD, B. MILLER, PHILLIPS-HILL |
Introduced as HB1613