Health-Care Price Transparency Deemed Critical in House Hearing

Ensuring transparent pricing for hospitals, health insurers, and drugs is essential to reducing costs for employer-sponsored health plans and patients, witnesses told a congressional subcommittee.

The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (H.R. 5378), which passed in a bipartisan House vote in December, would “empower patients, providers, and payers by advancing price transparency throughout the biggest components of the health care sector,” House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said Wednesday at the hearing.

The legislation would codify and strengthen price transparency rules for hospitals and insurance companies, and expand requirements that clinical labs, ...