OPINION:
On April 1, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his agency would be “requiring hospital executives to attest that their posted prices are accurate. If hospitals mislead patients or fail to disclose actual prices, we will hold them accountable. Transparency drives competition, and competition lowers health care costs for every American.”
That is welcome news for all Americans struggling under the burden of ever-increasing health care costs, driven in large part by the 281.4% increase in hospital prices since 2000.
For years, policymakers across the political spectrum have acknowledged that patients are often navigating the health care system without the most basic piece of information: what their care will cost.
The renewed attention from HHS is a sign that the problem is finally being taken seriously.
Meanwhile, hospital executives are rumored to be appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee next week. The members of Congress who will ask the questions at that hearing must demand answers from the witnesses about hospital price increases, exorbitant profit margins at nonprofit hospitals and lack of charity care.
Representatives from ECU Health in North Carolina (which reported a $34 million profit in 2024) and New York-Presbyterian ($547 million in profit in the same year) are rumored to be testifying, Politico reported.
As it turns out, the nonprofit charity game is quite lucrative if you’re a hospital.
Ultimately, the prices hospitals set are the first domino in a chain reaction that drives up health care costs for every American. In virtually every other sector of the economy, consumers expect to know prices before making decisions; health care has long operated under a different, indefensible set of rules.
Individuals undergo procedures, tests and treatments with little or no understanding of the financial implications, only to receive bills weeks later that vary wildly depending on the provider, hospital and even internal accounting procedure. That unpredictability distorts the very idea of a functioning marketplace.
Rules without enforcement are little more than suggestions, and too many hospitals have treated price transparency rules the same way. If this renewed push by HHS and Congress to hold hospitals accountable results in clearer, standardized, accessible pricing data paired with real consequences for noncompliance, then it could mark a turning point.
From a market-oriented perspective, transparency is not a peripheral reform; it is foundational. Competition depends on informed participants. When patients can compare prices in advance, they gain leverage. Providers, in turn, must respond not only by improving quality but also by justifying costs.
Over time, that dynamic can help discipline pricing in a way that top-down controls rarely achieve.
A fundamental fairness issue also is at stake. Unexpected medical bills have become a defining frustration for millions of Americans. Even those with insurance can face charges they neither anticipated nor had any meaningful opportunity to avoid.
Clear, upfront pricing would not eliminate every dispute, but it would dramatically reduce the number of people blindsided by costs to which they never agreed.
Greater openness also invites scrutiny, and that is a good thing. Health care spending accounts for a massive share of the U.S. economy, yet the rationale behind many prices remains obscure. When institutions are required to disclose what they charge in a way that patients and policymakers can understand, it creates pressure to align those prices more closely with the actual value they deliver.
That kind of accountability is essential to restoring confidence in a system that too often feels arbitrary.
Of course, transparency alone is not a silver bullet. Structural challenges in health care run deep, and no single reform will resolve them.
Without transparency, however, meaningful reform is impossible. It is the baseline condition for empowering patients, encouraging competition and improving outcomes.
Credit should be given where it is due. By scrutinizing hospitals, Mr. Kennedy and members of the House Ways and Means Committee are helping move the conversation in a productive direction that prioritizes patients as active participants rather than passive recipients.
The task now is to follow through. Ensuring that hospitals provide clear, accurate and comparable pricing information will require persistence and political will.
If the effort succeeds, then the benefits could be far-reaching: a health care system in which individuals can make informed choices, providers compete more openly, and financial uncertainty is no longer an unavoidable part of care. That is not a radical vision; it is a rational one.
It starts with something as basic (and powerful) as knowing the price.
• Andrew Langer is the president of the Institute for Liberty.
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