President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order aimed at bolstering price transparency in the American healthcare system, reviving efforts from his first term that he argues have been stalled by the Biden administration. The Making America Healthy Again by Empowering Patients with Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information order, signed Tuesday, directs federal agencies to enforce and expand existing regulations requiring hospitals and insurers to disclose the true costs of healthcare services.
“For far too long, prices were hidden from patients and employers,” Trump said in the order. “These opaque pricing arrangements allowed powerful entities, such as hospitals and insurance companies, to operate with insufficient accountability.”
The new directive builds on Executive Order 13877, issued in 2019, which mandated that hospitals display prices for at least 300 shoppable services and publish machine-readable files of negotiated rates. It also required insurers to disclose their negotiated rates and out-of-network payments. Trump’s order claims that despite early successes—including a reported 6.3% annual drop in the highest-cost healthcare services—federal enforcement under President Joe Biden was inadequate, allowing hospitals and insurers to evade full compliance.
Under the new order, the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services are required to take aggressive action within 90 days to:
- Ensure the disclosure of actual prices for medical services, not just estimates.
- Standardize pricing information across hospitals and insurers to improve comparability.
- Strengthen enforcement measures to guarantee compliance.
Trump cited economic analyses estimating that full implementation of these transparency measures could lead to as much as $80 billion in healthcare savings by 2025 and help employers cut healthcare costs by up to 27% for common services.
“The American people deserve better,” Trump stated. “Making America healthy again will require empowering individuals with the best information possible.”
As Trump ramps up his 2024 campaign rhetoric, healthcare reform is emerging as a key issue. His latest executive order signals that price transparency will be a focal point of his policy agenda moving forward.
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