Hospitals and insurers will howl, but the Trump administration today took a big step toward consumer empowerment with administrative actions designed to increase price transparency for hospital and other medical charges.

Galen Senior Fellow Brian Blase, who was instrumental in developing the executive order on price transparency issued in June, congratulated the administration for its proposed and final rules today.  “Transparent prices, particularly linked with incentives for consumers to search for value, will put downward pressure on health care costs and should reduce inefficient spending.”