Controlling Healthcare Costs: What's the Best Approach for Delaware?

March 10, 2026

Mark Fowser, WDEL

The cost of healthcare in Delaware is at the center of a new bill due for action in the General Assembly.

Senate Bill 1, according to its supporters, would result in lower premiums across state and commercial plans while addressing a shortage of primary care providers. Implementation of a previous law invested more than $203-million into primary care from 2022 to 2025, according to Delaware Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro.

"We want to build on that bill, which essentially puts more money into primary care private practices, the small independent-owned locations, so we can maintain their solvency," Navarro said.

Delaware Healthcare Association President and CEO Brian Frazee, however, said the bill contains mechanisms that would take important decisions away from experts in healthcare, impose limits on hospital investments into primary care, and impair recruitment efforts to build the workforce.

"That translates to over 1,500 jobs, and services that are critically important to our communities, and especially as a growing and aging state we need more healthcare, not less," Frazee said. "This would take us backward in that regard."

A Senate committee hearing on SB 1 will likely be held in March.

“As part of our ongoing efforts to make healthcare affordable for all Delawareans, we need to address both recently inflated costs, and long-term trends in both outcomes and price,” Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, Glasgow said.

“More and more, we see employer plans cut benefits instead of cutting costs through addressing health outcomes and health care prices. If commercial plans throughout the state take up models similar to Senate Bill 1, cumulative savings could be up to $442.7M and Delaware would no longer be the second most expensive state for employer-based health insurance premiums,” House Health and Human Development Committee Chair Nnamdi Chukwuocha, D-Wilmington said.

DHA's Frazee outlined the hospital trade association's chief concerns:

● Risk 1,500 healthcare jobs. During a national provider shortage, recruitment and retention should be key.

● Replace experts with bureaucrats in making decisions on hospital rates and value-based care.

● Cut $165 million in health care resources for Delaware hospitals, their patients and communities.

● Reduce primary care access. As the largest employer of primary care physicians, targeting hospital resources undermines the primary care networks Delawareans rely upon.

Frazee added that the Delaware Healthcare Association "remains ready to work with the bill’s sponsors, the Department of Insurance and all stakeholders to find a path forward that preserves Delaware’s national leadership in quality care."