On February 25, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order on price transparency for healthcare services. During his first term, President Trump tried to force the industry to become more transparent through the Transparency in Coverage final rule, which was effective January 11, 2021. Many hospitals simply declined to publish the required lists. Others tried to make their price information hard to find — even inserting code into their web pages to make the prices impossible to find using an internet search engine. The President believes that hospital price transparency lays the foundation for a patient-driven healthcare system by allowing patients to shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost.
Five things to know about yesterday’s executive order:
- The order directs the Department of the Treasury, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services to rapidly implement and enforce the Trump healthcare price transparency regulations, which he accuses the prior administration of “slow walking.”
- The departments will ensure hospitals and insurers disclose actual prices, not estimates, and take action to make prices comparable across hospitals and insurers, including prescription drug prices.
- The departments will update their enforcement policies to ensure hospitals and insurers are in compliance with requirements to make prices transparent.
- One economic analysis found that President Trump’s original price transparency rules, if fully implemented, could have delivered savings of $80 billion for consumers, employers, and insurers by 2025.
- To date, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services has fined 18 hospitals for price transparency violations; some hospitals are in appeals.
