Resolutions to Instruct Conferees

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, for the past couple of weeks, New Hampshire and many other States across the country have been flooded with millions of dollars' worth of dark money advertisements. These ads have been all over TV and social media.

Let me just be clear. They haven't been running just against me in New Hampshire; they have been running against Democrats and Republicans in competitive races across this country.

We have also had flyers that have been jammed in the mailboxes all across New Hampshire. I even got several of the flyers myself. This is an example of one. I will read it in just a minute.

I want to point out that the goal of this campaign has been to stop Congress from acting to address surprise medical bills.

For example, this flyer makes the dishonest claim that addressing surprise medical bills would lead to hospital closures and doctor shortages. In fact, you can see, it says:

Imagine if the care we needed wasn't there when we needed it the most. Rate setting is a healthcare nightmare--hospital closures, doctor shortages, windfall profits for big insurance. Say no to rate setting. Don't put big insurance companies in charge of our healthcare. Stop surprise medical bills.

Then you turn it over, and it says:

Tell Jeanne Shaheen to stop rate setting. Say no to putting big insurance in charge of our healthcare. Say no to making it harder to see our chosen doctors when we need them the most. Say no to big insurance profits at our expense. Tell Senator Jeanne Shaheen to put patients first.

You read that, and you think I am all about trying to put insurance companies ahead of patients. It doesn't tell you who is sending it. But you look at it--and we did a little digging, and we found out that the ads say that they are paid for by an organization called Doctor Patient Unity. You read that, and you think, well, they are worried about patients. You look at that, and you think they are worried about hospital closures. This is from Doctor Patient Unity, so this must be someone who cares about patients. Don't believe it.

The truth is, these flyers and the ads that have been running in New Hampshire and across the country are paid for by two private equity firms on Wall Street. They don't care about patients. They care about profits.

They have spent over $2 million in New Hampshire. If you look across the country, they have spent tens of millions of dollars. Just imagine that instead of trying to pad their own bottom line and worrying about surprise medical billing, they had put those tens of millions of dollars into improving healthcare for the people of this country.

The public doesn't know this because they have been left completely in the dark. Due to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, special interests can spend unlimited amounts of money and stay anonymous. So the average person throughout the country who gets one of these flyers is not going to know who paid for these ads. They are not going to know who is getting the benefit of the costs from surprise medical billing.

This ad campaign is not only confusing to voters; it is exhibit A in how our campaign finance system is broken. The voices of Granite Staters who are struggling to pay surprise medical bills are being drowned out in this case by private equity firms on Wall Street that are making billions off of the status quo.

Here is how these private equity firms are exploiting patients. First, surprise medical bills usually occur when a patient visits an in-network hospital. Let's say my insurance says that I can go to the hospital in my hometown. As part of the treatment, I go to the hospital, but the doctor who sees me is not a doctor who is in the network of my insurance company. So unbeknownst to me, as I go into the emergency room, that doctor is what is called out of network. These doctors often are working for physician staffing companies that have gone out of network so they can aggressively pursue surprise medical bills. These physician staffing companies are also using these surprise medical bills to negotiate--to command in-network payments from insurers that are often twice as high as the average, which can result in higher premiums for everybody.

So they have these surprise medical bills, and you pay more for those. The insurance companies and the physician staffing companies go to the insurers and say: Look, these doctors are getting paid this much from surprise medical bills, so you have to raise your payments for doctors in your network, and everybody is going to pay more as the result of that.

Again, this is frequently done at the behest of private equity firms that own the physician staffing companies.

Surprise medical bills can be a tremendous shock to patients. This is what happened to Donald and Kathy Cavallaro. They live in Rye, NH. Don works at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. When Kathy needed emergency surgery, Don's insurance covered the hospital costs, but the doctor performing the surgery was out of their insurance network. The result was that they got a surprise medical bill for $5,000. Now they are appealing that cost.

Unfortunately, what the Cavallaros are going through isn't a rare occurrence. One in six emergency room visits in New Hampshire results in a surprise bill for Granite Staters who have large employer coverage.

Nationally, the average cost of a surprise bill from an emergency room visit is more than $600, and the average surprise bill for inpatient care is over $2,000. So we can see what is happening as a result of surprise medical bills. Surprise bills like these can easily put a family budget in the red, and Congress desperately needs to put a stop to them.

Today, I strongly encourage my colleagues in the Senate to move this effort forward. The special interests that are pushing these surprise medical bills and pushing up all of our healthcare costs have to be tuned out.

This is about making sure that when a Granite Stater or any American goes to a hospital, they can have faith that their insurance is going to cover their costs. We should not--we must not--let private equity firms on Wall Street bully Congress or derail the bipartisan efforts that are taking place in this body to address surprise medical bills.

These advertisements should also serve as a reminder that Congress has to reform our broken campaign finance system. Special interests shouldn't be able to hide behind nice-sounding front groups like Doctor Patient Unity.

We know these private equity firms are responsible for these ads only because of investigative reporting that was done by Bloomberg, the New York Times, and some others. Sadly, this is the exception rather than the norm because usually dark money never gets exposed.

In closing, I want to send a very clear message: I don't care how many ads these special interests run, how many mailers they send out, or how many millions they spend. Granite Staters who have had their family budgets upended by surprise medical bills must be prioritized over the special interests who want to profit off of them. Healthcare costs are out of control, and tackling surprise medical bills must remain at the top of the Senate's agenda.

Thank you.

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