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Relating to the establishment of a statewide all payor claims database and health care cost disclosures by health benefit plan issuers and third-party administrators.
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
HB 2090 would require health benefit plan issuers or administrators to disclose publicly on a website in three machine-readable file formats helpful consumer information such as each coverage option's name and identifier and a billing code with a plain language description for prescription drugs. The bill would also require health benefit plan issuers or administrators to disclose similar information upon an enrollee's request.
A senate substitute to the bill would require the Department of Insurance to create a database for the disclosures described above and for the Center for Healthcare Data at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to submit an analysis to the legislature of the data reported to the database.
On the one hand this is another government mandate on insurance companies, on the other hand the only reason there is not price transparency in this area is because of government regulation which insulates both health care and health insurance from operating in a truly free market environment. While we prefer not to use new government mandates to correct problems created by other government mandates, consumers need price transparency. Texas Action is neutral on HB 2090.
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