$629 Band-Aids and $ ...

About this Recording

Americans make more than 140 million trips to the emergency room each year, but usually don’t know the price until a bill shows up in the mail. New York Times journalist Sarah Kliff spent 18 months collecting thousands of emergency room bills, and made public the prices that hospitals try to keep secret. From $629 Band Aids to $5,571 charges for just sitting in a waiting room, Ms. Kliff will discuss what her reporting found, what it tells us about the American health care system, and the policy solutions Congress could use to fix it.

What you'll learn

At the end of the recording, participants will be able to:

• Describe legislative and policy relief for “surprise billing” to patients
• List 3 loop-holes in the “No Surprises Act”
• Describe tactics patients can use to advocate for themselves in terms of hospital billing
• Discuss relative benefit of various policy options (e.g., patient choice, increase in transparency, rate-setting) in reducing hospital costs

Moderator

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  Wendy Mariner

  Emeritus Professor, BU School of Public Health

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Professor Mariner is the Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law at Boston University School of Public Health, Professor in the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights, Professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, and Director of the JD-MPH dual degree program at Boston University School of Public Health; Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law; and Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Professor Mariner’s research focuses on laws governing health risks, including social and personal responsibility for risk creation, health insurance systems, implementation of the Affordable Care Act, ERISA, health information privacy, and population health policy. She has co-authored three editions of the law school textbook, PUBLIC HEALTH LAW, Third Edition (Wendy Mariner, George J Annas, Nicole Huberfeld & Michael Ulrich, 2019), Second Edition (Wendy Mariner & George J Annas, 2014), and First Edition (Ken Wing, Wendy Mariner, George Annas & Dan Strouse, 2007), and published more than 100 articles in the legal, medical and health policy literature on public health law, patients and consumers’ rights, health care reform, insurance benefits and regulation, AIDS policy, immunization, research with human beings, and reproductive rights. She is Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, having previously served as Vice Chair and Secretary, and was a member of the ABA Special Committee on Bioethics and the Law. Professor Mariner also serves as Program Chair of the Program in Health Law & Human Rights, a joint project with the Public Health Regulations Analysis Center of the National School of Public Health of the New University of Lisbon. Professor Mariner has served on state, national, and international boards and commissions, including the Massachusetts Health Facilities Appeals Board, the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council Advisory Committee, the Massachusetts Health Information Technology Council Advisory Committee; the National Institutes of Health AIDS Advisory Committee, the Committee for the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association, and Institute of Medicine committees. Her university activities have included serving as Chair of the Boston University Faculty Council and ex officio member of the Trustees of Boston University, Co-Director of Regulatory Knowledge and Research Ethics of Boston University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and member of the Boston University Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion and other university committees. She was the American Journal of Public Health’s Contributing Editor for Health Law and Ethics and currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and the Human Rights and the Global Economy. With health law colleagues, she has submitted amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States in cases involving health law issues, including the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Subject Matter Expert

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  Sarah Kliff

  Investigative Reporter, The New York Times

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Sarah Kliff is one of the country’s leading health policy journalists, who has spent nearly a decade chronicling Washington’s battle over the Affordable Care Act. Her reporting has inspired new legislation in Congress, been cited by the Supreme Court, and resulted in multiple hospitals revising their billing policies. Sarah is currently an investigative reporter at the New York Times and, before that, was a senior policy correspondent at the website Vox. She has also covered health care for the Washington Post, Politico, and Newsweek magazine.
Sarah is the recipient of multiple reporting awards, including fellowships from the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. The Supreme Court cited Sarah’s work in their 2012 decision upholding the health care law. After she broke news in early 2017 that Republican legislators had exempted their own coverage from their Obamacare repeal bill, the House of Representatives took a vote to close that loophole.
Sarah is a frequent television guest and has appeared on CBS, PBS, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. She enjoys public speaking and, most recently, has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Colorado Health Institute and the California Health Care Foundation.

Registration and Contact Hours

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_{Acknowledgement: This project is/was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UB6HP31685 “Regional Public Health Training Center Program.” This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.}

_{* Yale School of Public Health, Office of Public Health Practice, a New England Public Health Training Center partner, is a designated provider of continuing education contact hours (CECH) in health education by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. All CHES credit inquiries are managed by YSPH}