Trump Signs Healthcare Price Transparency Executive Order

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President Trump recently signed an executive order providing greater healthcare price transparency for patients.¹

The order, says the Trump Administration, is expected to help lower healthcare prices, which will ultimately benefit patients and employers when it comes to seeking out deals on healthcare. Per Reuters,² the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services will have 90 days to implement an initiative that originally dates back to a final rule³ he released in 2019 during the president’s first term, where he had directed hospitals and insurers to make their prices public.

The rule had gone into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

Specifically, hospitals were required to disclose pricing information for up to 300 shoppable services, along with a machine-readable file containing the negotiated rates for each service offered by each hospital. This includes rates with providers, out-of-network payments to providers, and the actual amounts paid for prescription drugs by the hospitals or their PBMs, which had been challenged in court to no avail.²

"Under the status quo, healthcare prices are about as clear as mud to patients," said Seema Verma—the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services’ administrator at the time—back in November 2019. "Thanks to President Trump's vision and leadership, we are throwing open the shutters and bringing to light the price of care for American consumers. Kept secret, these prices are simply dollar amounts on a ledger; disclosed, they deliver fuel to the engines of competition among hospitals and insurers. This final rule and the proposed rule will bring forward the transparency we need to finally begin reducing the overall healthcare costs. Today's rules usher in a new era that upends the status quo to empower patients and put them first."

Analysis⁴ surrounding the websites of 2,000 US hospitals showed that only 24.5% of them had been fully compliant with the rule’s requirements.

But according to the executive order’s fact sheet,¹ 95% of American patients reportedly consider healthcare price transparency to be “an important priority,” while six in 10 feel it should be one of the government’s top priorities.

“Our goal was to give patients the knowledge they need about the real price of healthcare services,” said Trump. “They’ll be able to check them, compare them, go to different locations, so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost. And this is about high-quality care. You’re also looking at that. You’re looking at comparisons between talents, which is very important. And then, you’re also looking at cost. And, in some cases, you get the best doctor for the lowest cost. That’s a good thing.”

References

1. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Make Healthcare Prices Transparent. The White House. February 25, 2025. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-make-healthcare-prices-transparent/

2. Trump signs healthcare price transparency executive order. Reuters. February 25, 2025. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-price-transparency-executive-order-2025-02-25/

3. Trump Administration Announces Historic Price Transparency Requirements to Increase Competition and Lower Healthcare Costs for All Americans. United States Department of Health and Human Service. November 15, 2019. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/11/15/trump-administration-announces-historic-price-transparency-and-lower-healthcare-costs-for-all-americans.html

4. The Fourth Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Compliance Report. Patient Rights Advocate. February 6, 2023. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.patientrightsadvocate.org/february-semi-annual-compliance-report-2023