In an era of political gridlock, at least one clear area of bipartisan common ground continues to exist â the desire for real healthcare price transparency. In fact, a 2025 poll showed 96% of Americans across the political spectrum are in favor of the commonsense idea that you deserve to know the price of healthcare before receiving it. And finally, tangible progress is being made in both chambers of Congress to build upon numerous executive orders and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rules and make healthcare price transparency the law of the land.
But why is healthcare price transparency so important?
First, healthcare price transparency is a needed initial step to fix the broken healthcare market. It allows for better, more accurate price signals, empowering patients with key information that allows them to shop for non-emergent healthcare goods and services. It also puts public pressure on care providers to justify prices, which may or may not be reasonable. I say let the market work. Ultimately, this drives up competition, which â in turn â lowers prices. In every other industry, weve seen this benefit the American consumer â why not healthcare?
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And it is no question that competition driven by transparency is needed. Currently, prices for the exact same procedure can range nearly 10 times, and even the same procedure within a given hospital can have wildly different prices based on backroom negotiations and often arbitrary price tags. But the problem is amplified when the prices not only differ within and across hospitals but are secret to those receiving, and ultimately paying for, the care until the bill arrives weeks to months later. With over 40% of Americans with healthcare debt and more than 40 million Americans on high-deductible health insurance plans, the opaque nature of healthcare billing is simply unacceptable.
Second, we spend about one in every five dollars on healthcare in our economy. Thats a huge amount of money -â about $5.3 trillion. But inherently, spending so much money on healthcare isnt bad â the better question is: what do we get for the money we spend?
We dont know.
And a large proportion of our countrys spending is healthcare coverage, including over 150 million Americans who have insurance through their employers. Healthcare is one of the largest costs for employers, if not the largest. But even they dont know what they get for the money they spend for their employees, nor do they know the price tag of healthcare goods and services up front. And are their employees healthier?
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Healthcare price transparency can improve employer plan management and strategy, removing one element of the “healthcare unknown” and eliminating bureaucratic and inefficient frustrations and waste. The focus for employers can then move to demanding insights on quality of care, a logical next step to build upon price transparency. Healthcare price transparency is a signal that secrec
