House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats voted against a provision of President Donald Trump’s health care plan requiring hospitals to prominently display pricing for services.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ Prices on the Wall Act would require hospitals, labs, imaging centers, and other providers of routine medical services to post their prices where patients can see them. The Iowa Republican’s bill would codify part of Trump’s “Great Healthcare Plan,” which he released in January.
However, at a July hearing of the Energy and Commerce Committee, every Democrat present voted against it. Two Democrat committee members, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Debbie Dingell of Michigan, didn’t show up to the hearing and did not immediately respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.
The White House slammed the committee’s Democrats for voting against the “straightforward legislation,” which it says “would advance a key pillar of President Trump’s price transparency agenda and his Great Healthcare Plan.”
“Republicans are unified behind fighting for patients’ right to transparently and simply see prices ‘on the wall’ to protect consumers, drive competition and ultimately lower costs,” White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai told the Daily Signal. “We thank Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks for her leadership on this legislation, and Americans will not forget that Democrats sided with big health care corporations that profit through secrecy over lowering costs for patients.”
A 2024 poll by PatientRightsAdvocate.org shows 92% of Americans support requirements that hospitals and insurers provide real prices for services upfront.
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New York, which includes Ocasio-Cortez’s district, had 18 hospitals fail to comply with the Trump administration’s price transparency rule; Michigan, home of Dingell, had 13 hospitals fail to comply.
Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., who voted against the bill, called it “unworkable” in its current form.
“It would require every price to be posted physically on a wall in every hospital, but there are hundreds of different types of charges,” he said in a statement to the Daily Signal.
Florida has 21 hospitals that failed to comply with the administration’s price transparency rule. For instance, Central Florida Behavioral Hospital, in Soto’s district, received a violation notice.
Though Soto did not vote for the Prices on the Wall Act, he said he was “proud to vote for the Lower Costs More Transparency Act,” which passed the House during Joe Biden’s presidency.
“I remain open to voting for an amended version that would provide a searchable database at each hospital,” he said.
In Trump’s first term, his administration enacted a price transparency rule that it says the Biden administration did not enforce. In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz sent letters to 500 hospitals warning them to be transparent with their prices or face fines.
Health care price transparency has been dubbed a MAHA initiative by Kennedy. In February, he announced the department is developing a website to provide full price transparency for health care costs, which he says will ultimately drive down the costs of health insurance.
“All of these systemic changes are ultimately, I think very quickly, [will] drive down the cost of health care in this country and provide transparency and affordability to Americans,” Kennedy said at the announcement.
Miller-Meeks said in a statement to the Daily Signal that price transparency isn’t a partisan issue, but a common sense one.
“As a physician, I’ve seen how a surprise medical bill can undo months of careful planning for a family already dealing with a health scare,” she said. “My ‘Prices on the Wall Act’ simply requires hospitals to post their prices in plain sight, so patients can always get the lowest cost and better understand the cost before they agree to treatment.”
“Every American, regardless of party, deserves that basic transparency,” Miller-Meeks added. “It shouldn’t have been a hard vote, and Americans deserve to know who stood with patients and who didn’t.”
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