Trump and Kennedy Placing Patients First

Pursuant to the 2019 Executive Order, the Trump administration “issued paradigm-shifting regulations to put patients first by requiring hospitals and health plans to deliver meaningful price information to the American people. These regulations require hospitals to maintain a consumer-friendly display of pricing information for up to 300 shoppable services and a machine-readable file with negotiated rates for every single service the hospital provides; health plans to post their negotiated rates with providers as well as their out-of-network payments to providers and the actual prices they or their pharmacy benefit manager pay for prescription drugs; and health plans to maintain a consumer-facing internet tool through which individuals can access price information.”

If implemented, one 2023 economic study estimated that these sensible regulations would have saved consumers, businesses and insurers $80 billion in healthcare costs by 2025.

Unfortunately, with the advent of the administration of President Joe Biden progress was halted on this issue. The Biden administration refused to pressure hospitals and health care plans to provide price transparency for patients.

As noted by Ilaria Santangelo, Research Director of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, under the Biden administration compliance with the regulations was “low” and “hospitals were not meaningfully penalized enough for non-compliance.”

Thus, President Trump was forced to take additional action. He followed up his initial Executive Order with a new Presidential Action on February 25, 2025.

In this proclamation, the President directed that “The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take all necessary and appropriate action to rapidly implement and enforce the healthcare price transparency regulations issued pursuant to Executive Order 13877.”

The President’s new directive requires “the disclosure of the actual prices of items and services, not estimates.” In addition, “pricing information” must be “standardized and easily comparable across hospitals and health plans.”

Hospitals must now attest under penalty of law that their pricing data is accurate and complete. To ensure these actions are taken, the Trump administration has created enhanced enforcement procedures. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) can issue civil fines up to $5,500 per day for non-compliant hospitals, based on bed count.

Sadly, hospitals in Louisiana are particularly resistant to follow the Trump transparency requirements. A recent study by PatentRightsAdvocate.org determined that only 15% of the state’s hospitals are compliant with price transparency, worse than the national average of 21.1%.

Even more troubling, only 13% of the state’s healthcare facilities posted adequate information to allow for “meaningful price comparisons.”

According to Santangelo, “Most of the (Louisiana) hospitals we looked at posted estimates or incalculable algorithms in lieu of actual prices, which made these pricing files unable to be shopped.”

Fortunately, President Trump is reversing the inaction of the last administration by fining hospitals that are refusing to provide patient transparency. For example, the Community Care Hospital of New Orleans was fined $93,214 by CMS for “repeated failures to post pricing information required under federal law.”

CMS also fined Northlake Behavioral Health System of Mandeville $257,000 for pricing transparency violations such as a failure to provide machine-readable pricing information online and a failure to display “shoppable services in a customer-friendly manner.”

Along with refusing to provide patients with price transparency, hospitals are increasing costs after independent practices are acquired. Hospitals generate approximately $2.4 million in profit per employed physician by steering patients to higher-cost hospital settings. Furthermore, when hospitals consolidate, a study by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics revealed that prices rose by 11% and $856 per hospital stay.

Therefore, in a multitude of areas, patients are facing higher costs. Consequently, political leaders need to take bold, aggressive action to address this crisis.

Heeding this call is U.S. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), who introduced the “Same Care, Lower Cost Act” on May 6, 2025. If passed, the legislation will “fix a part of Medicare’s billing structure that allows hospital systems to charge patients for outpatient care at more expensive hospital rates—even when the medical procedures could be done safely at non-hospital settings.”

As Kennedy states, “Patients should only pay for the care they receive, not for the sign on the door or where they get treated. My Same Care, Lower Cost Act is a common-sense reform that expands patients’ health care options, creates greater transparency, and reduces taxpayer burden.

Senator Kennedy believes that this reform legislation may save Medicare recipients up to $134 billion over ten years “in lower premiums and cost sharing.”

This legislation is a perfect complement to President Trump’s push to enact price transparency. Hopefully, it will encourage more Louisiana healthcare facilities to follow the federal rules on patient pricing. The disturbing evidence of Louisiana hospitals refusing to comply proves why President Trump’s strengthened enforcement is essential.

With President Trump leading on transparency and Senator Kennedy advancing ambitious reform legislation, Louisiana has a unique opportunity to become a model for healthcare cost reduction through transparency. Lower healthcare costs will make Louisiana a more attractive state for business relocation and expansion, while transparent pricing will help families make informed healthcare decisions.

In Louisiana, enhanced healthcare costs are one of the biggest reasons why so many people are leaving the state. Since 2020, over 110,000 residents have left Louisiana for better opportunities in other states. Obviously, dramatic change is needed.

Louisiana must build on President Trump’s groundbreaking transparency initiatives. Trump’s hospital price transparency orders, both in 2019 and 2025, represent a significant opportunity to control healthcare costs for Louisiana businesses and families.

With Senator Kennedy taking the lead in introducing bold legislation, Louisiana’s healthcare industry must step forward to complete the cost revolution that President Trump started in 2019. This will ensure Louisiana’s economic competitiveness for many years to come.