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Home – Trump Presidency News – Biden Turned Patient Protection into Slush Fund, and Trump Is Doing Something About It

Biden Turned Patient Protection into Slush Fund, and Trump Is Doing Something About It

President Donald Trump signed the No Surprises Act in 2020 to stop patients from getting ambushed by medical bills they never agreed to pay. Under the Biden administration, it became one of the most lucrative slush funds for providers who use a loophole in the law to overbill for procedures and drive up costs for all Americans. The Trump administration has attempted to fix the problem, but it doesn’t go far enough.

The law’s arbitration process, known as Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR), was designed as a narrow backstop for rare payment disputes between insurers and out-of-network health care providers. When the law passed, the government expected roughly 17,000 cases a year. Providers filed 1.2 million in the first half of 2025 alone.

The IDR process is a lucrative business for providers and arbitrators. Instead of billing patients, providers take health plans to arbitration, and federal contractors pick a side. Under the Biden Administration, providers won over 85% of decisions. As a result, they received awards of three to nine times the in-network rate.

Congress has a bad habit of passing a bill with a catchy title that pretends to solve a problem and either fails to do so or opens up a whole other can of worms. Washington has claimed victory because patients stopped getting bills in the mail. The patient is protected at the mailbox while the American people pay for the racket........

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