Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2025
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by AMAC Action
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A new Executive Order from President Donald Trump on healthcare price transparency promises to finally put patients on equal footing with hospitals and medical providers in understanding and negotiating the cost of their care – delivering a sweeping victory years in the making for AMAC members and every healthcare consumer.
In signing this order, President Trump has proven once again his commitment to patients’ rights and ensuring that hospitals are not unfairly gouging Americans in need of care. In 2019, during his first term, President Trump signed an initial order on healthcare price transparency which resulted in the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule that was finalized in 2020 and took effect in 2021.
AMAC Action applauded this rule at the time, noting that it promised to “reduce the secrecy behind healthcare pricing and bring welcome competition to the private healthcare industry.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services further claimed that “about 200 million Americans will gain access to real-time price information, enabling them to know how much their healthcare will cost them before going in for treatment.”
In theory, this rule should have forced hospitals to maintain consumer-friendly price displays, post negotiated rates with providers, disclose what they pay for prescription drugs, and create online tools for patients to access this information, among other important provisions. As President Trump’s most recent executive order notes, “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.”
However, the Biden administration failed to hold hospitals and medical providers accountable to the requirements of President Trump’s initial order. As of last November, as few as 21 percent of hospitals and healthcare systems were in full compliance with the transparency rules on the books.
As a fact sheet released by the Trump administration notes, “Prices vary widely from hospital to hospital in the same region. One patient in Wisconsin saved $1,095 by shopping for two tests between two hospitals located within 30 minutes of one another.” But because of a lack of price transparency, patients have no insight into the final cost to them and often end up spending hundreds or thousands of dollars more than they need to.
President Trump’s latest healthcare transparency order aims to change that, directing “the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to rapidly implement and enforce the Trump healthcare price transparency regulations.” Those agencies are specifically charged with ensuring hospitals and insurers “disclose actual prices, not estimates” and taking action “to make prices comparable across hospitals and insurers, including prescription drug prices.”
This order, which calls for “radical transparency,” is a major win for patients nationwide and AMAC members who have been leading the charge on healthcare price transparency for years. More than nine in ten Americans say healthcare price transparency is an important priority, while six in ten say it should be a top priority of the government. AMAC members have made their voices heard on this issue, and now President Trump is responding with sweeping and authoritative action to enforce the common-sense reforms forwarded during his first term.
“AMAC Action commends President Trump for issuing this important healthcare price transparency Executive Order that puts American patients first,” said AMAC Action Senior Vice President Andy Mangione. “Thanks to his efforts, healthcare consumers will be empowered with the data they need to make prudent decisions regarding their medical care. This transparency will result in facilities competing for patients which will drive down the cost of everything from prescription drugs to tests to non-emergency procedures. Congress needs to codify this order quickly so a potential Democrat administration can’t reverse this cost saving, free-market solution.”
“Making America healthy again will require empowering individuals with the best information possible to inform their life and healthcare choices,” President Trump said in the order. “By building on the historic efforts of my first term, my Administration will make more meaningful price information available to patients to support a more competitive, innovative, affordable, and higher quality healthcare system.”
AMAC Action will continue to provide updates on this and other healthcare transparency efforts in the weeks and months ahead.
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