Trump to sign order to reinforce rules for healthcare cost transparency

By Skylar Woodhouse

  President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order to reinforce rules to make health care prices more transparent for patients. 

The order directs the Treasury Department, Labor Department and Health and Human Services to enforce a set of regulations from Trump’s first term that called for hospitals and health insurers to publicly disclose their prices, according to a fact sheet seen by Bloomberg News. The rules were aimed at making it easier for consumers to comparison shop for treatments and prescription drugs.

 

The order directs regulators to update their enforcement policies to make sure health care providers and insurers are complying with the rules, first issued in 2019.

 

Health care prices have long been a mystery for consumers, with patients struggling to compare prices for similar services. Prices are routinely negotiated between hospitals, drugmakers and insurance companies, who have resisted efforts for more transparent disclosure. 

 

Trump’s first-term order for more price disclosure has had limited success, with the vast majority of hospitals failing to fully comply with his directive. A 2022 survey found that only about 14 per cent of hospitals were fully adhering to rules to publicly post their prices.

 

Trump’s original rule imposed a $300-a-day fine that didn’t give hospitals much of a financial incentive to follow the new rule. The Biden administration raised the penalty for hospitals with more than 30 beds to $10 a bed per day — at most $5,500 a day. The yearly penalty for noncompliance ranges from $109,500 for small hospitals to a maximum of more than $2 million.

 

The health care industry has struggled to establish a warm relationship with Trump. Earlier this month, Trump warned drugmakers in a private meeting that tariffs are coming and companies should move their production facilities into the US to avoid import duties.

 

Despite his pro-business leanings, Trump had tense exchanges with drug companies in his first term, at one point accusing them of “getting away with murder” on the price of medicines.

 

Patient rights advocated have lauded efforts to enforce the disclosure rules, saying it will help lower costs for consumers.

 

“Price transparency unleashes competition and shifts the power to the true purchasers of care — patients, employers, and taxpayers — allowing them to lower their costs and be protected from overcharges,” Cynthia Fisher, founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org said in a statement. “Why would anyone pay $3,000 for an MRI when they could get the same quality for $300?”