Two mandates defining the incoming Trump administration are clear: cut wasteful spending and improve Americans’ health. The goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they share a solution. Health-care price transparency, an effort President Trump championed during his first term but which stalled out under Biden, is the low-hanging fruit that Trump’s firebrand appointees can leverage to create enormous progress in both arenas.
As Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and chainsaw through rampant government overspending, and as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nominee to head the Dept. of Health and Human Services, seeks to Make America Healthy Again by improving public health, combatting chronic disease and dismantling the stranglehold that corporations and lobbyists have on government agencies, health-care price transparency can provide the rocket fuel they need to achieve their goals.
Fortunately, the price transparency policies are in place and in reach. President Trump laid the groundwork for health-care price transparency in 2019 when he signed an Executive Order that ultimately resulted in three administrative laws: the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, which requires hospitals to post all their prices online; the Transparency in Coverage Rule, which requires health insurance companies to publicly post all their negotiated rates; and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which requires insurance companies and brokers to reveal all historical claims data, payment information, and broker fees.
Sadly, the Biden administration hindered the transformative impact these laws could have by allowing hospitals and insurance companies to continue to hide prices, and by rolling back the rules. According to a recent report by PatientsRightsAdvocate.org, only 21 percent of hospitals are following the law, largely because the Biden administration hasn’t enforced the rule. Of the 4,000-plus hospitals not in compliance, only 15 have been fined. Moreover, where Trump’s rules called for actual prices, the Biden administration softened the requirements allowing hospitals to post meaningless estimates and obfuscating algorithms. If the new breed of leaders strengthens and robustly enforces the rules as intended, all Americans — patients, workers, employers, unions and taxpayers alike — would experience fast financial and physical relief.
As DOGE works to cut wasteful spending and make government more efficient, the obvious place to start is with the biggest chunk of the federal budget. According to a Johns Hopkins University study, 48 percent of that budget, or $2.2 trillion goes to pay for health care, making it an area ripe for disruption. Moreover, one fourth of that spending goes to waste, overcharges and fraud, according to a report in JAMA. Nationally, health-care spending rose to $4.9 trillion in 2023, or $14,750 per person, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported.
By exposing health-care prices and unleashing price competition, America’s dysfunctional health-care system could at last become a functional market. Prices would drop. Hospitals and insurers would be held accountable to posted prices. Sunshine would flush greed and middle players out of the system. Transparency would reveal that prices for the same service in the same hospital vary by up to 10 times within a hospital. Pulling back the curtain on hidden prices would not only eliminate inefficiencies and empower consumers, but would also, according to top economists, save our economy over $1 trillion every year. That’s a good start for DOGE.
It’s also healthy for MAHA. Transparency in health-care prices would most certainly help Make America Healthy Again. Americans’ health will improve once they can shop for value and seek care with financial certainty. Access to care would go up as both care and coverage become more affordable. Patients will stop putting off necessary care including preventive care due to unknown costs, which nearly half (44%) of Americans surveyed did last year.
Transparent prices would help this administration battle chronic illness by encouraging consumers to seek preventive care before small health problems become more serious, more expensive and more deadly. Then perhaps America could become the healthiest nation in the world, instead of lagging far behind its international peers despite spending twice as much on health care as the next developed country.
As Americans spend less on health care, they’ll put more money in their wallets. Lower health-care premiums for employers, unions and workers will help make American businesses thrive and be more globally competitive. Transparency would also expose the corruption and conspiracy that define the swamp, home to lobbyists and corporate influencers, and drain it.
By implementing and enforcing systemwide health-care price transparency, which 92 percent of American voters want, leaders of DOGE and MAHA can move America giant steps forward on the road toward better physical and financial health.
Marni Jameson Carey is president of Power to the Patients, a national nonprofit dedicated to assuring that all Americans realize their right to know the price of their health care before they get it. You may reach her at marni@powertothepatients.org.
