Affordable Care: House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability
- TCCRI Staff
- 23 hours ago
- 2 min read
Solutions to health care affordability lie in empowering consumers, increasing transparency, reducing mandates, and restoring competitive market forces rather than expanding government programs.
On April 30, 2026, the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute submitted testimony before the House Select Committee on Health Care Affordability, offering a comprehensive, market-oriented analysis of the forces driving health care costs in Texas and nationwide. TCCRI's testimony identifies high provider prices — not overutilization — as the primary engine of escalating premiums, with hospital spending alone accounting for 40 percent of national health care expenditure growth between 2022 and 2024, compounded by specialty pharmaceuticals, GLP-1 drugs, and a dysfunctional federal arbitration process under the No Surprises Act that has disproportionately favored providers at consumers' expense.
On insurance design, TCCRI highlights the promise of market-driven innovations such as ICHRAs and price-transparent plan models, recommending that the Legislature revive legislation permitting small employers to offer ACA-compliant plans exempt from state benefit mandates, pursue a shared-savings pilot for state employees, and require broker conflict-of-interest disclosures. The testimony further documents the sweeping consolidation of Texas hospital markets — with nearly half of all metropolitan areas controlled by one or two health systems — and urges the Legislature to revisit pre-transaction reporting and ownership transparency legislation from the 89th Regular Session as a necessary foundation for meaningful antitrust oversight.
Finally, while recognizing Texas's leadership in price transparency law, TCCRI calls on HHSC to produce a dedicated annual enforcement report tracking hospital compliance, ensuring that the robust legal framework the Legislature has built translates into genuine accountability. Taken together, TCCRI's testimony makes the case that lasting health care affordability reform requires a sustained commitment to market competition, consumer empowerment, and regulatory accountability.
