Today a measure to make health care costs more transparent was heard in the Senate Health Care Committee. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, will require insurance companies to display their cost of services, quality rankings by provider network and consumer feedback of individual medical professionals on their website.
“If you’re a high-quality, low cost insurance provider, you’re going to want to have as many actively-engaged health care consumers as possible,” said Mullet. “There are fears that if you give people the price; you’re not actually going to get the quality outcome that you’re hoping for. This bill requires that insurers give price and quality information so consumers can combine those two to make better informed health care decisions.”
Under the bill, health insurance providers offering benefit plans after Dec. 31, 2015 must offer the transparency tools to their consumers.
