Justice Department Makes A Strong Case for Health Care Price Transparency

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Issues & Insights

While everyone focuses on Americans’ health in the time of COVID-19, efforts to fix the country’s broken health care system continue under the radar. 

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice squared off against several hospital associations in a (virtual) hearing in federal district court in Washington, D.C. over the Trump administration’s health care price transparency rule. A Department of Health and Human Services’ regulation, issued last November, requires hospitals to publish both their cash prices and the prices they charge patients in employer-sponsored insurance plans. This rule will allow patients to know the cost of their care in advance of purchasing it, rather than weeks or months later when they receive their bills. Hospital groups promptly sued the administration to block the rule’s implementation, currently scheduled for Jan. 1, 2021.