1/ The “No Surprises Act” is deeply flawed. It should not advance in its current form. Work must continue to reach a meaningful remedy to “surprise medical bills” #SMB that keeps patients out of the middle and provides balance.

Here are several concerns w/ the current proposal:

2/ The proposal should require that the initial “interim payment” made by the insurer for out-of-network services be considered the plan’s offer for IDR, to incentivize the insurer to pay a fair initial reimbursement.

But, the proposal does not.
3/ The proposal should allow the IDR process to consider UCR and an independent charge-based database. Lest it be a form of price-fixing by insurers since the qualifying payment is indexed to the insurer-set in-network median rate (w/CPIU adjustment).

But, the proposal does not.
4/ The proposal should avoid a complex administrative burden that threatens practice viability and leads to consolidation and higher healthcare costs for patients. Cost effective independent physician practice provides patients choice.

But, the proposal does not.
5/ The proposal should explicitly prohibit the IDR process from considering Medicare, Medicaid, and other public payer rates. These are well known to be below the cost of providing care and these programs are not implicated by the #SMB provisions.

But, the proposal does not.
6/ The proposal should require that ERISA plans must submit claim information to the APCD. The growth of ERISA plans makes this an imperative. Federal statute is necessary to stipulate.

But, the proposal does not.
7/ The proposal should clearly hold all health plans accountable, with enforcement and audit programs, as robust for ERISA plans as for other health plans.

But, the proposal does not.
8/ The proposal should clearly impose penalties on plans that fail to reimburse providers for out-of-network care or that provide false or inaccurate information on their median contracted rate.

But, the proposal does not.
9/ The proposal should omit revenue cycle timelines unreachable for physician practices - small businesses; omit penalties to physicians due to delayed responses from insurers; and limit insurers’ unwarranted opportunities to operate on the float.

But, the proposal does not.
10/ The proposal should explicitly hold out-of-network physicians harmless for erroneous information an insurer includes in its in-network physician directory, especially unbeknownst to the physician and without physician input.

But, the proposal does not.
11/ A flawed #SMB proposal will:

•Further narrow networks
•Limit access to care for patients
•Jeopardize health equity, and
•Put at risk healthcare jobs for employees

This has direct and indirect economic impacts.
12/ A flawed proposal fails to hold insurers accountable for their fundamental role driving #SMB thru:

•narrow networks
•high deductibles with disproportionate cost sharing
•take-it-or-leave-it contracts spurred by market dominance

It rewards insurers reaping record profits.
13/ A flawed #SMB proposal whose CBO score indicates 80% of “savings” comes from cuts to in-network providers while physicians risk our lives fighting a pandemic, sends the message that physician service is not valued.

Esp. now is not the time to rush a flawed SMB proposal.
14/ @PAMEDSociety urges Congress to go back to the drawing board on this: https://t.co/31WYbkbiWp
15/ @AmerMedicalAssn writes “...we oppose enactment of the bill in its current form...”

https://t.co/6vAd9I5VRs
16/ Please see👆 @CongBoyle @RepBrianFitz @CongressmanGT @RepMeuser @RepJohnJoyce @RepDwightEvans @RepDean @RepHoulahan @RepSusanWild @GReschenthaler @MikeKellyPA @RepConorLamb @mgs @USRepMikeDoyle @RepCartwright @RepFredKeller @RepScottPerry 
@RepSmucker @SenToomey @SenBobCasey
17/ Please see 👆 @SenateGOP @senatemajldr @SenateDems @SenSchumer @SpeakerPelosi @GOPLeader @HouseDemocrats @HouseGOP @HELPCmteDems @GOPHELP @HouseCommerce @EnergyCommerce @WaysMeansCmte @WaysandMeansGOP @EdLaborCmte @EdLaborGOP @WhiteHouse @Transition46 #medtwitter

More from For later read

Humans inherently like the act of solidarity. We are social beings. We like to huddle up and be together.
They used this against us.
They convinced us that it was an act of solidarity to flatten the curve, to wear a mask for others, to take the vaccines for others,


and to reach #covidzero for others. They convinced us that this was for the greater good of society.
In reality, this couldn't be further away from the truth. They have divided us and broken the core structure of our society. They have dehumanized us with their masks.

They set us against each other into clans on opposite sides of a spectrum. They have turned us into aggressive beings fighting for our survival. Some of us fear harm from the virus, others fear harm from the vaccine, and yet others fear harm from the attack on our civilization.

We are all on a flight or fight mode. We are all operating under the influence of fear. We must collect ourselves and reflect on what has happened over the last year.
How is this for the greater good of society?

They used a tactical warfare strategy against us.
'Divide and conquer'.
We fell for it.
Now we must become aware of it and fight back.
We must reunite. We must find true solidarity to save our world. To free ourselves. To regain our autonomy.
Part of what is going on here is that large sectors of evangelicalism are poorly equipped to help people deal with basic struggles, let alone the ubiquitous pornography addictions that most of their men have been enslaved to for years.


On the one hand, there's a high standard of holiness. On the other hand, there's a model of growth that is basically "Try Harder to Mean it More." Identify the relevant scriptural truth & believe it with all of your sincerity so that you may access the Holy Spirit's help to obey.

Helping sincere believers believe and obey the Bible facts is pretty much all the Holy Spirit does these days, other than convict us of our sins in light of the Bible facts.

If you know you are sincere and hate your sin and believe the right Bible facts as hard as you can but continue to be enslaved to your pornography addiction, what else left for you to do? Just Really, Just Really, Just Really Trust God and Give it to Him?

To suggest that there are other strategies available sounds to those formed in this model of growth like one is also suggesting that the Bible is insufficient, but it also suggests something just as threatening- that there are aspects of reality that are not immediately apparent.

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The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/