For the patient, if the out-of-state insurer can figure out how to lower the patient’s costs and still make a profit.
One law to consider would be to require service providers publish a cash/list price. Not sure how to compel that Constitutionally, but does seem a systemic problem is that providers don’t actually know _what_ their price is without having created an impenetrable list of negotiated costs.
Just because we can’t immediately see how it would work doesn’t mean that someone with connections & motive won’t make it work. Heck, one solution could be: insurer contacts provider and says “we’ll pay fair price $X for this, and if you don’t agree (or negotiate with us in good faith) you’ll have to get thru our enthusiastic lawyers to get anything out of our client who, by the way, doesn’t have anywhere close to $X.”
I work in hospital collections.
There is nothing in the world worse than an out of state payer. We don’t know how to authorize. We have no contract. They pay whatever they want, and THEN we negotiate. The bill stays on the active A/R forever because we don’t want to send the patient a $10,000 bill 5 months later, but we inevitably do.
No hospital in Texas wants to deal with insurers in all 50 states. It would drive administrative costs through the roof.