Bobby Jindal and Charlie Katebi
During his first term, President Donald Trump made groundbreaking, bipartisan reforms to require hospitals to disclose their prices to the public. Unfortunately, most hospitals continue to withhold vital pricing information from patients. Now Trump is ordering federal agencies to strengthen these reforms.
For decades, most hospitals hid the price of their healthcare services from patients looking for care. Without this information, patients had no idea how much their healthcare would cost until they received it. This lack of transparency foisted large and unexpected hospital bills on patients and often saddled them with crippling medical debt.
In 2019, however, Trump decided to end this uncertainty and give patients control over their healthcare. That year, his administration implemented a policy that requires hospitals to publicly disclose the prices of 300 common, nonemergency services on their websites. These reforms promised to empower patients to comparison-shop for the best healthcare services at the most affordable price. Transparency revealed that some hospitals charge substantially higher prices than others in the same metropolitan area. Families can review the prices of multiple hospitals and choose the more affordable option. Health plans could also use publicly available prices to negotiate lower reimbursements on behalf of their members.
