Two FirstHealth hospitals among 11 in NC warned by Trump admin about pricing transparency
President Trump and his team are going hard at the issue of affordability — particularly affordability of healthcare services – amid serious economic concerns and right here in front of the very important November mid-term elections:
The Trump administration has warned more than 500 hospitals that they are failing to provide the public with basic pricing information — arguing that the lack of disclosure is keeping healthcare costs higher than they should be.
The Associated Press obtained exclusively the list of hospitals that since April have either received letters of warning or, in more severe cases, requests to submit plans to provide transparent pricing. Failing to comply with the warnings comes with penalties as high as $2 million annually for each recipient that doesn’t create a plan to post clear pricing data.
The letters are meant to fix a fundamental problem that patients, employers and insurers might not know ahead of time the cost of blood work, an imaging test or another form of treatment, and as a result pay more than they should have. […]
Here is a full list of the 519 hospitals nationwide that are reportedly afoul of the Trump administration’s wishes.
Here are the eleven North Carolina hospitals that made Trump’s *naughty list*:
(Folks in Iran can tell you it’s no fun being on one of Trump’s *naughty lists.*)
And there’s MORE:
[…] A senior administration official who requested anonymity to provide the list said President Donald Trump plans to tighten enforcement of price transparency standards made possible by a 2019 executive order signed by Trump. More hospitals are likely to receive letters regarding the absence of pricing data, the official said.
The warnings are the latest example of Trump leaning into the message that his administration is fixing the problem of healthcare expenses that can drain a family budget. It’s a calculated pitch ahead of the November midterms at a time when affordability is a top concern for voters. […]
Gary Claxton, senior vice president and the director of the program on the healthcare marketplace at KFF, said the pricing data is more useful for benefit consultants and others in the sector with access to additional information than it would be for consumers. But he said the standards in reporting pricing data can still create difficulty in making accurate comparisons about the costs and quality of the services being provided.
“There’s a pretty widespread belief that prices are more divergent than they should be in a competitive market — and this is one way of trying to understand that more,” Claxton said. “It’s moving in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean it has gotten to where it needs to be.”
The American Hospital Association said in a statement that its members have long supported price transparency and the majority of hospitals are complying with the federal requirements that went into effect this year.
Still, Ashley Thompson, senior vice president for policy at the association, noted in the statement that “the current system is not working as well as it could for patients” and that hospitals would continue working with the administration to improve pricing information and transparency. […]
Here’s a White House fact sheet detailing the administration’s pricing transparency plan when it was rolled out in February 2025.
Former state treasurer Dale Folwell tried something like this with the state health plan in 2019. But he didn’t count on the generosity of the hospital lobby toward legislative Republicans. The GOP majority deep-sixed Folwell’s transparency plan.
(Folwell is now retired. A leading foe in the legislature of Folwell’s transparency plan is now head of the state hospital association. Isn’t it *neat* how that works out?)
