WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks from the White House Friday afternoon on the latest steps his administration has taken to reduce health care costs and curb so-called unwanted insurance costs for consumers.
Biden will speak from the East Room at approximately 3:30 p.m. ET on the series of regulatory measures, which the White House announced in a backgrounder earlier today.
Among the administration’s new efforts are proposed rules that would close loopholes that allow companies to offer “misleading insurance products that may discriminate based on pre-existing conditions and trick consumers into buying products that offer little or no coverage when they need it most,” the White told House.
The measures taken by the Trump administration have allowed insurance companies to take advantage of these loopholes, he added.
The Biden administration also announced new rules to further limit surprise medical billing in which millions of people received unexpected bills for health care they thought was in-network and covered by their insurance. The White House said these surprise bills can cost people between $750 and $2,600 on average.
The administration said it will issue guidelines to clarify that it is illegal under federal law for health plans that contract with hospitals to claim they are not technically networked.
“Health care services provided by these providers are either out-of-network and subject to surprise billing protections,” the White House said, “or they are in-network and subject to the ACA’s annual limitation on data sharing. costs, further protecting consumers from excessive outlays.”
The administration will also clarify that health plans and providers must make information available to consumers about “facility fees” for care provided outside of hospitals, such as in a doctor’s office, according to the fact sheet. information.
In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of the Treasury plan to work together to determine whether health care providers are complying with consumer protections when enrolling patients for third-party medical credit cards.
The White House said the new actions are part of the president’s economic vision, recently dubbed “Bidenomics.” His administration has tried to tackle extra fees that have resulted in high costs for consumers in other industries, such as when people travel or order tickets to a concert or sporting event.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com