Trump Signs Executive Order to Make Healthcare Prices Radically Transparent
By Jennifer Galardi, Staff Writer, The Kennedy Beacon
On Tuesday evening, President Trump signed his first executive order directly aligned with the MAHA agenda. Helping to fulfill Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promise of ‘radical transparency,’ the order will “empower patients with clear, accurate, and actionable healthcare pricing information.”
To achieve this goal, President Trump has tasked the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to implement and enforce healthcare price transparency regulations that ensure “hospitals and insurers disclose actual prices, not estimates, and take action to make prices comparable across hospitals and insurers, including prescription drug prices.”
Trump called for rapid execution and enforcement of the new plan, giving the agencies involved 90 days to fulfill the mandate. In addition, the agencies are expected to issue the updated guidance or proposed regulatory action necessary to make sure the order is standardized across hospitals and health plans and to ensure compliance.
As the healthcare system has become increasingly cumbersome to navigate, many patients feel taken advantage of by hospitals and insurance companies. Unlike most goods and services, medical procedures and drugs are not subject to the same free market principles that allow consumers to shop for the best price and value.
The White House’s order fact sheet states that prices can vary widely from hospital to hospital in the same region. It offers an example of a patient in Wisconsin who saved $1,095 by shopping for two tests between two hospitals located within 30 minutes of one another.
The sheet states that price transparency can deliver savings of $80 billion for consumers, employers, and insurers this year. In addition, it says employers can lower their healthcare costs by an average of 27% on 500 common services by better shopping for care.
In signing the order, the president said that patients will be able to “check [prices], compare them, go to different locations, so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost.” He also emphasized his order would help people find the best care at the lowest cost. “You’re looking at comparisons between talents, which is very important,” he continued. “And then, you’re also looking at cost. And, in some cases, you get the best doctor for the lowest cost. That’s a good thing.”
The directive advances an initiative Trump established in 2019, during his first term, to mandate that hospitals and insurers make prices public. Trump blasted President Biden for failing to follow up during his term.
“The American people deserve better,” President Trump writes in the executive order. “Making America healthy again will require empowering individuals with the best information possible to inform their life and healthcare choices.”
I will be interested to see how my Trump hating Facebook friends twist this to make it something bad.
My husband and I just received notification that our health insurance premium through United Health Care is again being raised. It was raised last June(2024) to $319.22/ month each and will be raised to $351.18 this June. That means we will be paying over $700/ month for our supplemental health insurance policy. I wish there was someone who could advise us what to do. We are in our 80s and we chose what we thought was the best policy based on an “agent’s” recommendation. This does not cover our monthly Medicare part B charges taken out of our social security or our Medicare part D for prescriptions. Nor do we have hearing aid or glasses coverage. Something must be done to curb these terrible costs. I feel like we are being robbed blind. I will see if this makes any difference.