By Nadia Stovicek and Kennah Watts
Whereas Indiana lawmakers have been working to cut back well being care prices for industrial medical insurance for greater than a decade, this legislative session was significantly productive. A bevy of well being care value reform payments centered on pricing, transparency, and antitrust points had been enacted, and these efforts had been complemented by two government orders from Governor Mike Braun geared toward reining in hospital market energy. With these legislative and government department actions, Indiana has launched into a path to enhance well being care affordability for Hoosiers and set an instance for different states.
Legislative and Administrative Motion on Price Containment in 2025
Indiana had a rare legislative session. Out of ten payments launched aiming to constrain well being care value development, the legislature enacted six (see desk beneath). These payments focused a wide range of levers to cut back system extensive prices for medical insurance, some utilizing novel strategies reminiscent of::
- HEA 1666 and HEA 1004, which require possession or monetary data reporting from suppliers, respectively, together with data on any non-public fairness affiliation.
- HEA 1004 requires a reference-based value ceiling for any hospital that contracts with an employer well being care association, outlined as an association between a hospital, hospital system, nonprofit hospital, and slim community of hospitals.
- SEA 3 requires third-party directors (TPAs) and pharmacy profit managers (PBMs) to behave as fiduciaries of the well being plans with which they contract. The invoice defines fiduciary obligation to imply working in the perfect curiosity of their shoppers.
Desk. Legislative Motion from Indiana’s a hundred and twenty fifth Legislative Session
| Invoice quantity | Price containment mechanism(s) | Abstract |
| HEA 1003 | Transparency, antitrust | Codifies federal Hospital Worth Transparency rule; prohibits PBMs and TPAs from redacting claims information through commerce secrets and techniques assertion; prohibits anti-tiering and all-or-nothing contract provisions |
| HEA 1004 | Worth regulation; monetary transparency | Massive nonprofit hospitals programs can’t cost greater than combination common statewide industrial costs or danger shedding their state tax exempt standing; suppliers should report on monetary and possession standing; payers and TPAs should disclose fee charges; hospitals that contract with worker profit plans should cost at or beneath a benchmark of 260 p.c of Medicare; TPAs should present claims information together with digital billing (837s) and supplier funds (835s) inside 15 enterprise days of an employer request |
| HEA 1666 | Monetary and possession transparency; antitrust | Will increase legal professional common’s authority to analyze market transactions amongst well being care entities; requires monetary and possession reporting by suppliers |
| SEA 3 | Fiduciary obligation reform | Requires TPAs and PBMs to behave as fiduciaries; defines fiduciary duties |
| SEA 119 | Antitrust | Bans purposes for certificates of public benefit (COPA) after Could 13, 2025 |
| SEA 475 | Antitrust | Bans non-compete agreements between physicians and hospitals or hospital programs, or a mother or father firm of a hospital or an affiliated supervisor of a hospital |
Governor Braun additionally issued two associated government orders:
- Govt Order 21 requires the state to evaluate the effectiveness of value transparency measures and develop a penalty for suppliers and payers that don’t adjust to transparency necessities.
- Govt Order 22 requires nonprofit hospitals to yearly confirm that they supply extra in charity care than they obtain in state tax breaks; hospitals that don’t present this verification shall be denied the tax exemption.
Mixed, these efforts mark a number of the most important advances in insurance policies to constrain industrial market value development of any state thus far. Nonetheless, these reforms weren’t enacted in a single day—they required years of training, coordination, and advocacy to turn into regulation.
How Transparency, Persistence, and Coalition Constructing Led to Success
Indiana’s extraordinary 2025 legislative session was a product of years of devoted advocacy to enhance transparency and sort out the foundation trigger of upper well being care prices. The story could be traced again to the Employers’ Discussion board of Indiana, a multi-stakeholder coalition created to enhance the worth employers obtain from their funding in well being care advantages. When Gloria Sachdev, a former pharmacist, took the helm of the Employers’ Discussion board in 2015, she posed a easy query to her coalition of largely self-insured employers, “what’s your greatest ache level?” The reply got here swiftly and unanimously: “well being care affordability.”
Nonetheless, employers couldn’t simply determine how a lot they paid for medical companies. With little to no transparency from hospitals and insurers, employers couldn’t successfully push for the suitable reforms. Sachdev and the Employers’ Discussion board subsequently piloted the Employer Worth Transparency Challenge to assist employers and well being care purchasers use hospital pricing information to pursue higher-value healthcare. The challenge started with RAND 1.0, the primary publicly out there employer value transparency examine in the US that offered costs alongside the names of the person hospitals. RAND printed the examine in 2017 with information from Indiana hospitals and costs paid by self-funded employer plans. The examine outcomes had been surprising: Indiana employers had been paying, on common, 272 p.c of Medicare charges. For outpatient care, that quantity jumped to 358 p.c of Medicare. Given these outcomes, employers and—importantly—their elected representatives started to take discover and demand reform.
To refine the info and perceive Indiana’s value atmosphere in comparison with different states, the RAND research have expanded nationwide. The latest iteration, RAND 5.1, contains information on hospital costs throughout 49 states and DC (Maryland is excluded due to its distinctive all-payer mannequin). With these findings, the Employer Worth Transparency Challenge launched Sage Transparency, a device to offer employers, policymakers, and advocates easy accessibility to cost and high quality information. These two instruments have turn into the muse not simply to know costs, however to problem them.
The info and dashboard had been vital however alone not sufficient to domesticate change. The Employers’ Discussion board collected details about ache factors from its main employer members to assist educate coverage makers on well being care pricing points and construct public assist. Impressed by Sachdev’s work, former Indiana Republican Celebration Chair Al Hubbard launched Hoosiers for Inexpensive Healthcare, a gaggle devoted to pushing for legislative reform. Sachdev turned the vice chair and shortly bipartisan advocacy efforts had been underway. The group then constructed client assist with a media marketing campaign and a easy message: greater hospital costs imply smaller Hoosier paychecks and inflated premiums.
Spurred by value information and arranged advocacy, prior periods of the Indiana legislature handed payments to ban extra hospital charges, prohibit non-compete clauses for major care, require merger reporting to the legal professional common, and set up a Well being Care Price Oversight Activity Power. The method of debating and enacting these payments helped educate lawmakers and the general public and set the stage for the profitable 2025 legislative session. Different states are additionally taking discover––Indiana’s methods to advance value containment have impressed Texas and Maine to launch their very own transparency-driven campaigns.
Wanting Ahead
The issue of excessive and rising well being care prices are not at all solved in Indiana. Way more stays to be carried out to ship actual value aid to Indiana employers and shoppers. Nonetheless, the state’s appreciable progress can serve for instance to different states of how transparency, educated coalitions, and chronic advocacy can create an atmosphere ripe for coverage change that bends the worth curve.
The authors thank Dave Kelleher and Sara Otte of the Employers’ Discussion board of Indiana, in addition to Luke Thomas from Hallowell Consulting, for his or her assessment and considerate feedback on this weblog put up.
