Related: Association health plan bill is back, could reach House floor soon

Walberg also emphasized his interest in supporting employer-sponsored health benefits.

"More than 150 million Americans have employed sponsored health insurance, or ESI, which falls squarely under this committee's jurisdiction," Walberg said. "ESI at the forefront of creating Innovative and market-based solutions that expand affordable health coverage for American families."

Association health plans: An AHP could give self-employed people, small employers and others the ability to escape from a state's fully insured individual health insurance or small-group health insurance market and state benefits rules, by joining a group that could negotiate for low rates and strong benefits on behalf of its members.

Under AHP regulations adopted during Donald Trump's first term as president and rescinded by the Biden administration, an AHP would be regulated by its home state for some purposes, such as solvency and marketing practices, and by the U.S. Department of Labor for other purposes, such as benefits design.

Like a self-insured health plan, a Trump-era AHP would be exempt from the Affordable Care Act essential health benefits package requirements but subject to the ACA rules that apply to self-insured plans, such as the requirements that a self-insured plan cover a basic package of preventive services without imposing deductibles or copayments on the insureds.

Walberg succeeded at getting an AHP bill approved by the House Education and the Workforce in 2023, but the bill never reached the House floor.

The AHP bill had seven Republican and no Democratic cosponsors.

Lower Costs More Transparency Act: Walberg's other legislative priority, bringing back the Lower Costs More Transparency Act, could help employers that like health care price data and technology firms that want to use the data to create new kinds of benefits analysis products and services.

Provisions in the bill would have required pharmacy benefit managers to send employers detailed activity reports.

Other provisions would have required many different types of health care providers, such as hospitals and medical imaging centers, to provide price reports.