MacIver News Service | June 26, 2019
MADISON — On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to take steps to improve price and quality transparency in health care. The MacIver Institute applauds the president’s common-sense efforts to truly bend the cost curve of health care down.
Trump’s executive order demands providers make the true cost of services available to patients in plain language, requires out-of-pocket costs be made known to patients earlier, makes health care quality metrics more widely available to consumers, and expands health savings accounts, among other measures.
In response, MacIver Institute president Brett Healy issued the following statement:
“We’ve all probably gotten a shock hospital bill. That experience is just one example of why price transparency, or lack thereof, is one of the main drivers of spiraling health care costs and barriers to care. When patients don’t know what they will be paying for a procedure, whether through insurance or out-of-pocket, there is no downward pressure on prices that is usually part of a healthy market.
“Fortunately, President Trump understands that it’s consumers in a free market that will drive down the cost of care, not another government program that only puts more money into the current failed system. The president’s executive order is a big step toward changing course and truly lowering the cost of health care for all Americans.”