Congress passed the incredibly popular No Surprises Act in 2020 with two goals: shield patients from unexpected medical bills and lower the exorbitant prices charged by some doctors. 

One of those goals is going great — patients are now protected from “surprise medical bills” that came from inadvertently getting care from doctors who didn’t take their insurance. But new academic research and reporting from The New York Times find that some doctors are cashing in on the law — charging insurers way more now, fueling higher insurance premiums. 

In the next virtual event in the “Decoding the Moment” series presented by Tradeoffs and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, two leading researchers and a former CMS official will discuss why the No Surprises Act has failed to deliver on its cost-cutting promise, what could be done to change things, and whether there are larger lessons for future policy change.

About the Decoding the Moment series

The Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to reshape federal health policy have created a fast-moving, uncertain landscape for the health care sector and policymakers. In response, Penn LDI and Tradeoffs’ “Decoding the Moment” series provides timely, evidence-based discussions with leading experts on key federal policy changes. The series explores the implications of recent actions and what they signal for the future. Past events have focused on the health impacts of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Obamacare subsidies at a crossroads, new rules for vaccine approvals, cuts to violence prevention programs, and contextualizing the rural health transformation program.

Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not necessarily represent those of Tradeoffs, the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine), or the University of Pennsylvania.

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Speakers