No. of Recommendations: 2
On healthcare pricing.
Back in...2019...I believe it was, Trump directed a study on making pricing in healthcare more transparent. One of the basics of economics is that you can't have a functioning market without all participants understanding the price and service availability for a particular good. Absent that, no real market can exist as by definition a price equilibrium never is able to take hold.
Trump's first EO was an attempt to start the ball rolling in that direction. Today, we get the followup:
During my first term, my Administration took historic steps to correct a fundamental wrong within the American healthcare system. For far too long, prices were hidden from patients and employers, with inadequate recourse available to individuals looking to shop for care or obtain pricing information from a healthcare provider in advance of a visit or procedure. These opaque pricing arrangements allowed powerful entities, such as hospitals and insurance companies, to operate with insufficient accountability regarding their pricing practices, resulting in patients, employers, and taxpayers shouldering the burden of inflated healthcare costs. Exactly right. Which leads us to...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/20...One economic analysis from 2023 estimated the impact of these regulations, if fully implemented, could result in as much as $80 billion in healthcare savings for consumers, employers, and insurers by 2025. Another report from 2024 suggested healthcare price transparency could help employers reduce healthcare costs by 27 percent across 500 common healthcare services. Recent data has found the top 25 percent of most expensive healthcare service prices have dropped by 6.3 percent per year following the initial implementation of price transparency during my first term.
Unfortunately, progress on price transparency at the Federal level has stalled since the end of my first term. <-- After the last EO was cancelled.
We have seen the benefits of places like the Oklahoma Surgery Center, where prices for common procedures are prominently displayed.
And so now, today:
Sec. 3. Fulfilling the Promise of Radical Transparency. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take all necessary and appropriate action to rapidly implement and enforce the healthcare price transparency regulations issued pursuant to Executive Order 13877, including, within 90 days of the date of this order, action to:
(a) require the disclosure of the actual prices of items and services, not estimates;
(b) issue updated guidance or proposed regulatory action ensuring pricing information is standardized and easily comparable across hospitals and health plans; and
(c) issue guidance or proposed regulatory action updating enforcement policies designed to ensure compliance with the transparent reporting of complete, accurate, and meaningful data.There will be the requisite complaints about this, but why anyone doesn't want to know if they're being charged $400 for a saline IV is beyond me.
The last EO came out too late to make a big dent. This one has at least 4 years to work.
