Kennedy in National Review: Hospitals can’t keep hiding their prices from patients

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) penned this op-ed in National Review arguing that hospitals are failing to comply with federal regulations requiring them to display their prices for medical care clearly. Kennedy explains how his bill, the Hospital Transparency Compliance Enforcement Act, would help the Trump administration enforce price transparency rules and save patients money.

Key excerpts of the op-ed are below:

"It can be scary to go to the hospital when you are sick or injured, but it can be even more terrifying to get the bill.

"Many Americans have no way of knowing how much a hospital will charge them for a routine medical procedure until weeks later when the bill arrives in the mail. This doesn't happen anywhere else. If I wanted to know the exact price of every mayonnaise at the grocery store, I could pull up the website and tell you in two minutes.

"This lack of transparency not only allows hospitals to charge breathtakingly high prices without fear of competition from other facilities, but it also allows them to charge different patients different rates for the same procedure."

. . .

"Congress can help the Trump administration hold these hospitals accountable by doubling the fines of those who refuse to comply. My Hospital Transparency Compliance Enforcement Act would increase penalties for noncompliance to as much as $11,000 per day for large hospitals.

"American consumers, employers, and insurers could have saved an estimated $80 billion if President Trump's original price transparency order had been enforced under President Biden. Families cannot afford for Congress to sit by while hospitals continue to ignore our rules to the detriment of patients.

"If Louisianians can find the price of a side of mashed potatoes at any of the 600 Cracker Barrel locations around the country, they ought to be able to find the price of a blood test at the nearest hospital, too. Hospitals cannot keep denying patients the information they need to make the best decisions for their families."

Read Kennedy's op-ed here.

Text of the Hospital Transparency Compliance Enforcement Act is available here.