Trump Signs Executive Order to Compel Disclosure of Health Care Prices

President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order intended to give Americans more information about the cost and quality of health care services to help them comparison shop before they get care, the Washington Post reports. The order requires health officials to propose a regulation within 60 days that would eventually require hospitals and doctors employed by hospitals to post their charges—including disclosing for the first time the discounted rates they negotiate with insurers. Hospitals and insurers have warned that being forced to share the results of these secret negotiations would destroy competition among health care institutions and insurers and would actually drive up prices. Senior administration officials said they have not decided how much detail would be required about the negotiated rates and that such fine print would be left to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is instructed to write new rules to carry out this and other aspects of the order. A senior administration official said the executive order "leaves room for us to work with industry" to decide the level of detail that is required to be made public.