STAT+: Trump signs order doubling down on making health care prices clearer
President Trump on Tuesday reaffirmed a priority from his first term: making health care prices public. But hospitals have long loathed price transparency rules.
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that reaffirmed a priority from his first term: making health care prices public and easier for people to understand.
The executive order promises “radical transparency” on health care prices for patients by ordering the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services “to rapidly implement and enforce the health care price transparency regulations.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration embraced the federal authority to mandate hospitals and health insurance companies to disclose prices they had long kept confidential. That authority is, ironically, enshrined in the Affordable Care Act, which was signed by former President Obama and which Republicans and Trump attempted to repeal in 2017.
