President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that will reinstate and strengthen price transparency in the healthcare industry.

“You’re not allowed to even talk about it when you go into a hospital or see a doctor and this allows you to talk about it,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“It’s been unpopular in some circles because people make less money,” he said. “But it’s great for the patient. It’s great for the people in our country.”

Mr. Trump signed a similar measure during his first administration in 2019, requiring that hospitals share the rates they negotiated with insurance companies and the price they’re open to accepting for items and services. It went into effect in 2021, but was revoked by the Biden administration.

The president says this time around, the order is “even stronger by a couple of major factors.”

The order directs the departments of Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services to enforce the order that will require hospitals and insurers to disclose the actual price of items, services and prescription drug prices and make prices comparable across every hospital and insurer.

“For far too long, prices were hidden from patients and employers, with inadequate recourse available to individuals looking to shop for care or obtain pricing information from a healthcare provider in advance of a visit or procedure,” the executive order says. 

The order cited an economic analysis from 2023 that estimated that the impact of the order’s regulations “could result in as much as $80 billion in healthcare savings for consumers, employers, and insurers by 2025.”

Another cited report from 2024 said healthcare pricing transparency “could help employers reduce healthcare costs by 27% across 500 common healthcare services.”

“The American people deserve better. Making America healthy again will require empowering individuals with the best information possible to inform their life and healthcare choices,” the order says. “By building on the historic efforts of my first term, my Administration will make more meaningful price information available to patients to support a more competitive, innovative, affordable, and higher quality healthcare system.”

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.