Looney, Fasano Applaud Bipartisan Passage of Patient Protection Bill

Today Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) applauded the Senate’s bipartisan passage of a bill that provides enhanced consumer protections and addresses major issues in the health care industry.

Senate Bill 42 expands the state’s first in the nation surprise billing laws to better protect patients, enhances consumer protections within the insurance industry, and studies issues of affordability in high deductible health plans.

“Too many patients are overbilled or receive surprise bills from their insurance company. Under this legislation consumers will see increased protections from some of the abuses in the health care insurance industry,” said Sen. Looney. “Once again it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Fasano in a bipartisan way to continue to strengthen consumer protections and transparency in the health care insurance industry.”

“Connecticut has been a national leader when it comes to increasing health care transparency and protecting patients from surprise medical billing,” said Sen. Fasano. “I want to thank Sen. Looney for working together with me over the years to collaboratively study and develop bipartisan legislation that addresses some of the biggest challenges facing patients and increasing transparency within the health care industry. This bill continues our bipartisan efforts to strengthen consumer protections, reduce health care costs, and make care more accessible.”

Senate Bill 42 includes the following provisions: 1) establishes a task force to look at issues of affordability around high deductible health plans, 2) requires hospitals to disclose fees associated with trauma activation, 3) prohibits disability insurance policies from containing discretionary clauses that allow the insurance company to interpret language it has itself presented in the contract, 4) prohibits insurers from denying coverage for ER services due to the fact that an insured could have received care elsewhere, 5) adds out of network lab services to the existing “surprise billing” law, 6) decreases the timeframe from 72 to 48 hours, (except during the weekend) for adverse determination review, and 7) ties out of pocket costs to the actual cost of services and prohibits insurers from charging insureds for care more than an uninsured would pay.

This legislation expands on Sen. Looney and Sen. Fasano’s efforts to address major health care and insurance issues.

In 2015, a bill championed by Sens. Looney and Fasano implemented historic health care transparency laws in Connecticut to mitigate surprise billing and ban certain facility fees. In 2017, Connecticut passed a bipartisan bill to ban gag clauses that prevent pharmacists from sharing price information with their patients and banning “claw back” provisions which result in consumers paying more than a prescription actually costs.

Senate Bill 42 now moves to the House of Representatives.