The Trump administration is finally getting well-deserved credit, but still not enough, for its efforts to improve healthcare policy.
Even the liberal New York Times has published a column praising one of the improvements — one on which people of all ideological stripes should agree. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a former New York Times correspondent and now the editor in chief of Kaiser Health News, wrote on Jan. 21 in praise of Trump’s new order compelling hospitals to reveal publicly their master price lists.
Rosenthal acknowledges that the lists are complicated and full of obscure medical abbreviations that most patients won’t easily understand. Still, she writes, “don’t dismiss the lists as useless. Think of them as raw material to be mined for billing transparency and patient rights.”
And: “While the lists are far from user-friendly, researchers and entrepreneurs can now create apps to make it easier for patients to match procedures to their codes and crunch the numbers. With access to list prices on your phone, you could reject the $300 sling in the emergency room and instead order one for one-tenth of the price on Amazon.”
What also is likely is that once patients begin to make use of these rights to price transparency, they will use market pressure to demand that the lists become more comprehensible. And as that happens, demand for less expensive options surely will rein in the prices that prove needlessly exorbitant.
Rosenthal’s compliments for Trump’s action here are right on target. Even better, the price-transparency order is only one of several Trump administration actions that are making, or will make, healthcare more affordable, efficient, or available. For example, a Trump executive order reviving so-called “association health plans (AHPs)” already is seeing success in helping small businesses and individuals secure insurance coverage similar to option-filled plans offered by large corporations. Moreover, in at least partial fulfillment of a Trump campaign promise, the AHPs will be allowed to operate across state lines, thus giving even more leverage to insurance purchasers to find the best deals.
Trump also has used executive authority to expand access to short-term, limited-duration insurance, and health reimbursement arrangements. The name of the former is rather self-explanatory, with the result that less expensive plans will be available for consumers who don’t want or need all the bells and whistles mandates by Obamacare. The latter are defined as “tax-advantaged, account-based arrangements that employers can establish for employees to give employees more flexibility and choices regarding their healthcare.”
At least partly due to these policies and other Trump administration management changes, health insurance premiums in the past year leveled off after several straight years of outlandish increases, and in some categories even appear to be dropping. This welcome news comes as dozens more insurers, reacting to the new policies, are now offering plans on the federal exchanges, so consumers will have more options. As the Wall Street Journal reported, “Last year, consumers in 56 percent of counties had only one carrier participating, CMS officials said, and next year that will drop to 39 percent.”
Yes, conservatives wisely want to repeal and replace Obamacare as a whole, expand health savings accounts, and encourage market reforms that do even more to expand choices and reduce prices. Until they do, though, the Trump administration is doing what it can to make the existing system more transparent, rational, and affordable. Kudos are due.
