🏷️ Transparency in healthcare pricing
Proposed rules and the Trump Administration's affinity for "unlawful collusion"
In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission issued an opinion about proposed new rules that would force hospitals to disclose the prices they’d negotiated with insurance providers. Analyzing a comparable Minnesota state law called the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (MGDPA), the FTC concluded:
While these laws can be pro-competitive, the recent amendments to the MGDPA may require public health plans to publicly disclose competitively sensitive information, including information related to price and cost. Such disclosure may chill competition by facilitating or increasing the likelihood of unlawful collusion, and may also undermine the effectiveness of selective contracting by health plans, which serve to reduce health care costs and improve overall value in the delivery of health care services in Minnesota.
The FTC analysis has taken on new life since the Trump administration announced last week new proposed rules that would require hospitals to tell patients ahead of time what their out of pocket costs would be, in addition to a raft of other proposals for more transparency in healthcare pricing.