Trump's healthcare order will help fix healthcare for everyone
One of President Donald Trump's most significant achievements during his first 100 days in office was his executive order requiring "radical" healthcare price transparency. The order doubles down on his first-term hospital and health insurance price transparency rules requiring the publication of actual prices of care and coverage, including discounted cash and negotiated insurance rates.
This information protects patients from overcharges and empowers them to reduce inflated costs through choice and competition. The executive order requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Labor (DOL), and the Department of the Treasury to issue rules strengthening, standardizing and enforcing systemwide price transparency by the end of this month.
Trump's healthcare price transparency effort will revolutionize healthcare and the entire economy. It's a pro-worker, pro-growth, free-market policy to boost worker paychecks and business earnings.
When employers and unions can access actual prices throughout the healthcare system, they can spot wide price variations for the same care, expose middle players driving up costs and design affordable health plans. They can share their savings with workers in the form of lower premiums and higher wages.
Under the status quo, healthcare is fundamentally un-American. It is the only economic sector where consumers cannot see real prices before they buy.
No functioning market can exist under these conditions. As a result, prices for the same care can range by 10 times, even at the same hospital.
For instance, C-sections vary from $6,000 to $60,000 and MRIs from $450 to $6,500. That isn't a marketplace — it's Russian Roulette that allows Big Health to profiteer off patients' misery.
For decades, health insurers have hidden prices and claims information, facilitating spread pricing that robs workers and employers. Employer-sponsored family health plans now cost $25,600 annually and increase by double-digits each year. Research shows that about the same amount of compensation gains for average workers since 2000 has gone to premiums as paychecks, a major cause of wage stagnation.
Unfortunately, hospitals and health insurers haven't complied with Trump's first-term rules. According to a recent study by PatientRightsAdvocate.org, only 21.1% of hospitals nationwide are fully complying with the hospital rule.
The Biden administration didn't meaningfully enforce the rule, issuing only 25 financial penalties on the thousands of hospitals that didn't comply. Biden also rolled back the rule, allowing the posting of unaccountable estimates in lieu of actual prices needed to shop. And health insurers have buried their data disclosures in massive files full of meaningless "ghost codes" that crash computers and are nearly impossible to parse.
Trump's new order increases enforcement to boost compliance, requires actual prices — not estimates — so patients can shop with financial certainty, expands transparency requirements throughout the healthcare system, and standardizes data disclosures, so consumers can make meaningful price comparisons. It gives people prices before they receive care.
Trump's order will also enact overdue requirements for health insurers to provide Advanced Explanations of Benefits (AEOBs), required by the bipartisan No Surprises Act that passed at the end of 2020. AEOBs let patients know exactly what they'll owe — including their out-of-pocket patient responsibility — giving them financial peace of mind.
Under the status quo, healthcare is fundamentally un-American. It is the only economic sector where consumers cannot see real prices before they buy.
They also empower employers and unions to audit their health plans and verify claims payments match provider bills and posted prices. Employers and unions can then eliminate spread pricing that — as the New York Times reported last year — often requires their health plans to pay far more to middle players than providers.
Drawing on a JAMA study concluding that 25% of U.S. healthcare spending ($4.9 trillion in 2023) is waste, overcharges, and fraud, economists estimate systemwide price transparency can generate approximately $1 trillion of savings. Putting $1 trillion a year in overbilling back into the productive economy, including worker paychecks and business investment, will result in an enormous annual economic stimulus.
Healthcare price transparency is the most important microeconomic reform in American history. It creates a functional, competitive marketplace that restores choice, accountability and trust. When prices are clear, markets work. When markets work, costs fall. And when costs fall, wages rise.
President Trump's executive order — and the ensuing federal rules issued later in May —will finally make healthcare price transparency a reality. They will solidify Trump's legacy as the president who fixed American healthcare.
Cynthia A. Fisher is a life sciences entrepreneur, and founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Canada retaliates against U.S. steel imports after Trump terminates trade talks
President Donald Trump said Friday that he had terminated trade discussions with Canada, citing an incoming Canadian tax on tech companies including those based in the U.S. In a post on Truth Social, Trump referred to Canada as "a very difficult country to trade with" and said that its levy on tech firms — the first payment for which is due Monday — "is a direct and blatant attack on our Country." "Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately," he said. "We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period." Last week Canada's finance minister said that he would not delay implementation of the digital services tax — which applies to any tech company making more than $15 million from Canadian internet users — even as U.S. trade talks continue. A lobbying group for some tech giants said the tax, which is retroactive to 2022, would cost U.S. companies as much as $3 billion. Those payments are due beginning June 30. The office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But late Friday, Canada retaliated against the U.S. by imposing a quota on some steel imports and a 50% surcharge for imports that exceed the quota. Canada's finance minister said the government was acting to protect its industry from "unjust U.S. tariffs." Canada's government said it "remains prepared to take additional steps as needed." Trump's post cuts short what had been a relatively calm period of trade-related announcements — a stretch that had helped markets recover to the all-time highs seen in February. Shortly after Trump's post went live, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes briefly turned negative but rallied later in the afternoon to close at all-time highs. Friday had begun with encouraging comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who indicated the president was open to moving the previously announced deadline for trade deals from July 9 to Labor Day — and that country-by-country duties themselves were negotiable. A few hours later, Trump said that initial July 9 deadline was not set in stone, saying the U.S. could either extend or shorten it. Canada is the second-largest U.S. trading partner. Currently, the U.S. has a tariff rate of 25% applied to Canadian imports that don't comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade deal Trump inked during his first term before he upended it with a flurry of tariff announcements in his second. The 25% tariff on non-compliant Canadian goods excludes energy products, which are subject to a 10% rate. Canada is also heavily impacted by Trump's 50% tax on steel and aluminum imports — the country is the largest foreign supplier of those materials to the U.S. And it has also been impacted by the 25% duties Trump has imposed on foreign-made vehicles and auto parts. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
From Cork to Maidenhead: An Irish nurse's story
A nurse who moved from Ireland to Berkshire in 1948 at the age of 19 to join the newly created National Health Service (NHS) was a "pioneer", her daughter has said. Nora McCarthy was one of thousands of Irish women recruited to train and work in British hospitals after the end of World War Two. Janie Davies said her mother, who died last year aged 95, "absolutely loved" her job as a nurse. Speaking to Radio Berkshire ahead the 77th anniversary of the NHS on 5 July, she said her mother told her it had been "very strict" in the early days. The NHS took control of 480,000 hospital beds in England and Wales in 1948 but it was short of 48,000 nurses so an active recruitment drive was launched in Ireland. At the time, nurse training opportunities in Ireland were limited and expensive, making the chance to train for free in British hospitals with live-in accommodation highly attractive. By the 1960s there were about 30,000 Irish nurses working in the NHS. Ms Davies said her mother saw an advert and decided she wanted to help. Nora first spent a year working at a hospital in Highgate, London, on an orthopaedic ward before an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB), she said. "About summertime 1949, mum and her friend wanted to apply for a job in Maidenhead," she said. "I think working a year on the TB ward was just getting to them, they were seeing a lot of death." Nora spoke fondly of her time in the NHS, said Ms Davies, adding that during the early years she had said it was "very strict" but there was "a lot of camaraderie too". She said her mother had told her of dances at the local church hall which the off-duty nurses would attend and where Nora met her future husband. Ms Davies' daughter Ciara has retraced Nora's journey from Cork to working at Maidenhead General Hospital in Berkshire, as part of her university dissertation. She said: "I started in Ireland, we went to the original green rooms in O'Donovan's where the [nursing] interviews had taken place. "Then to where she caught the bus from in Cork. We saw a little bit of Maidenhead but the original building for Maidenhead General Hospital was no longer there. "There were some surprises about her life that I didn't know, such as learning about tuberculosis and what her life was like on the TB ward." Nora worked as an NHS nurse for 50 years, retiring at the age of 69. Her story has been featured in a book, titled Irish Nurses in the NHS - An Oral History, which explores the life experiences of the Irish migrant nurses. Its co-author Prof Louise Ryan said the NHS described how it was "actively recruiting" in Ireland, with advertisements in national and local papers. NHS recruiters travelled throughout the country and carried out interviews with young women in local hotels. Prof Ryan said: "Their travel was paid, they earned a salary while they trained - plus they got accommodation in the nurses home. "If you can image parents waving their children off on this mammoth journey across the sea to England – knowing there was secure accommodation was very reassuring – they were very well looked after." You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Nurses 'proud' to celebrate 40 years of NHS care Nursery nurse congratulated for 45 years of service NHS nurses and healthcare staff offered 5.5% pay rise 'NHS needs fewer managers, more nurses' NHS Irish Nurses in the NHS - An Oral History
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Budget panels approve $58.8B spending bill in late night votes
The Legislature is scheduled to give formal approval to the $58.8 billion spending bill on Monday. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor) Budget panels in both chambers of the Legislature in late-night votes Friday approved an annual spending bill that Senate Democrats have said will cost $58.8 billion. Legislators' proposal spends more than the plan Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled in late February, leaves the state with a surplus too small to meet a statutory requirement for a new tax relief program, and expands New Jersey's deficit to $1.5 billion (Murphy proposed $1.2 billion). If the budget stands at $58.8 billion, it would amount to the highest level in state history. The full Legislature is expected to give the plan a final vote on Monday. The next fiscal year begins Tuesday. Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) on Friday read aloud a statement from an absent Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), the Senate's budget chair. 'This is a budget that will help move New Jersey forward in the face of difficult fiscal conditions and severe economic uncertainty. We are making the best use of resources to address the priority needs of the state's residents in a fiscally responsible way,' the statement read. On net, lawmakers' changes to Murphy's proposed budget add $728 million in spending beyond what the governor sought, and while the total effect of their revenue raisers was not immediately clear, the state appears poised to take in less money from recurring revenue than under the governor's proposal. Republican officials, in what has become a yearly rejoinder, criticized the late-night budget votes, which were held before bill text was available to the public. Members of the press received copies of the spending bill at 8:37 p.m. Friday, but the bills were not posted online Friday. 'It's the complete opposite of what good government looks like,' said Sen. Tony Bucco (R-Morris). 'Their rushed, opaque budget charade is exactly why New Jersey is in the fiscal mess we've found ourselves in. There's no accountability, no planning, and absolutely no transparency, just last-minute deals and political favors pushed through in the dead of night when no one is looking.' Friday's vote by the Senate's budget committee capped an unusual process that began when the panel met on Thursday but ended its meeting without a vote on the budget. Instead of adjourning, the committee took a 24-hour-long recess that allowed members who would not be present Friday, like Sarlo, to record their votes early on a budget bill that did not yet exist. Witnesses and lawmakers praised the budget's full $7.2 billion pension payment, and the more than $12 billion it sets aside for formulaic school aid. However, some expressed concern that the state would still spend more than it brings in. 'I appreciate the responsible side of this budget where it's full pension payment, it's a full school aid payment, a healthier surplus than we're used to, but there's no signs of the structural reforms we truly need to give our next governor a healthier budget,' said Chris Emigholz, chief government affairs officer for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin (D-Essex), her chamber's budget chair, said the state's next governor, who will take office in January, would need to determine whether some programs should be jettisoned. Murphy is barred from seeking a third term in November. 'Whoever comes in, I think that there's going to be some decisions that are going to have to be made. I think whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, they're going to have to take a look at especially some of the senior proposals just to see what we can do,' she said. Much of the new spending comes from legislative add-ons — variably called district spending, Christmas tree items, or simply 'pork.' Those items are numerous and varied, and their costs total in the hundreds of millions. They include millions in capital funding to individual school districts, like the $21 million Newark schools will receive, or for local infrastructure projects, like $8 million set aside for roadway improvements in Camden. Other changes would undo cuts to college financial assistance for students and reverse a $20 million cut Murphy proposed to community colleges' operating aid. Those cuts had rankled lawmakers and spurred alarm from university leaders. The budget would pull an additional $70 million from the state's clean energy fund to pay for salaries at NJ Transit, plus an additional $50 million to underwrite more general state spending. NJ Transit was already set to receive a separate $70.1 million from the fund as part of an annual diversion. The bill assumes the state will find $100 million in savings on state employees' health care benefits in the first six months of 2026, though it provides no suggestion for how officials realize such savings. Instead, it asks state and public employee representatives to each submit their own plans. The boosted spending would take the state's surplus to $6.7 billion, according to budget documents that had not undergone technical review by the Office of Legislative Services. Lawmakers augmented reserves by increasing a diversion from a debt defeasance fund — which is meant to reduce debt payments by immediately paying debt down or avoiding it altogether — to $555 million, from $250 million. The proposed level of surplus should trigger a statutory provision to pause payments from Stay NJ, a nascent property tax relief program that promises to cut seniors' property tax bills in half. The provision is intended to halt the program if the state doesn't have enough money to pay for it, but lawmakers have previously overwritten it. The budget includes a range of new or increased taxes, including a hike to rates paid on cigarettes, electronic cigarette fluid, high-dollar property sales, and casinos' online wagering wins. Lawmakers followed Murphy's lead on nicotine taxes, exactly matching proposals he made in his budget message, but approved lower tax rates for casinos' online wagering wins than the governor had sought. Those rates rise to 19.75% in lawmakers' budget plan, rather than the 25% Murphy pitched. Legislators made broader changes to a surcharge on realty transfers of more than $1 million. Rather than doubling that tax rate to 2% and imposing a 3% rate on property sales worth more than $2 million, legislators voted to raise rates to 2% for sales worth between $2 million and $2.5 million and increase them by an additional half percentage point for every $500,000 in additional value, to a cap of 3.5% at $3.5 million. Their proposal also calls for property sellers, rather than buyers, to pay the fee, a change that would decrease upfront costs for those buying buildings worth at least $1 million and reduce the profits from such property sales. Legislators eschewed some taxes sought by Murphy. They skipped a proposed 10% hike to the state's alcoholic beverage tax that was forecast to boost collections by $18.5 million. They also declined to enact a per-truck warehousing fee estimated to generate $20 million in revenue. A degree of uncertainty remains around the budget. GOP lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are exploring broad changes to federal programs that could pull billions in federal Medicaid funding, among other things, from New Jersey. 'In many ways, this budget may be a hypothetical document,' said Peter Chen, senior policy analyst at progressive think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective. 'When those cuts start coming, we'll have to come up with the revenue somewhere. Otherwise, we will face devastating cuts to many of the programs that we all hold dear.'
