Latest Braun executive orders target health care affordability, transparency

Gov. Mike Braun signed a series of executive orders Wednesday that aim to make health care more “affordable, accessible and transparent.”

The orders include directing state agencies to prioritize addressing surprise billing, pharmacy benefit managers and high drug prices.

Braun said he wants to bring clarity to an “opaque system” in which hospitals blame insurers and insurers blame hospitals.

“The fact is, they’re both complicit in a system that keeps the consumer not engaged with his or her own well-being and especially how much it’s going to cost when you need remediation,” Braun said.

READ MORE: Braun's health care plan includes several policies that struggled or died at the Statehouse
 

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Braun is also ordering the state to evaluate the value of charity care provided by non-profit hospitals and how it compares to the tax savings those hospitals receive.

“A system that was constructed long ago, that has not been maybe held to the standard of what it was supposed to be about,” Braun said. “Probably archaic in this day and age, in terms of what might work better.”

Braun’s orders also include audits of Medicaid and the State Employee Health Plan, to ensure, as he said, that every dollar spent on health care is used efficiently.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.