Economists Urge Senate To Back Healthcare Bill They Say Could Save Americans $1 Trillion

Over three dozen economists are urging the Senate to pass a bill that would codify President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring health care price transparency, which they say could save the American economy $1 trillion. 

In a Thursday letter, 40 economists across the political spectrum asked the Senate to back a bill from Senators Roger Marshall (R-KS) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) that would require hospitals to inform patients of medical costs before receiving care. Conservative economists Steve Forbes and Art Laffer, who signed the letter, told The Daily Wire that the proposal would cut waste and help the American economy. 

“The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act would give Americans access to actual prices in healthcare, allowing consumers to make informed decisions and finally hold hospitals and insurers accountable for wide price variation and overcharges,” Forbes told The Daily Wire. “Unleashing the free market would drive enormous savings for consumers and employers, boosting the economy to the benefit of all Americans.”

Laffer pointed to a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association that estimated that about 25% of America’s $4.9 trillion in health expenditures was spent on administrative waste, overcharges, over-treatment, and fraud. Laffer estimated that pricing transparency could save the economy $1 trillion per year. 

“Beyond lowering healthcare costs through choice and competition, price transparency will substantially benefit the American economy and the American worker,” Laffer told The Daily Wire. “When upfront prices empower businesses and unions to significantly reduce health plan costs, they can redirect savings to productive pursuits, including higher worker wages, generating an enormous economic stimulus for years to come.”

Other economists who signed the letter include representatives from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Duke, and other major universities. 

“As professional economists, we are united in our belief that real price transparency is urgently required to reverse the nation’s runaway healthcare costs that place a tremendous financial burden on patients, employers, workers, and the national economy,” they wrote. “Patients and employers need upfront prices to avoid overcharges, spot wide price variations — such as $300 to $3,000 MRIs and $1,200 to $12,000 colonoscopies — and choose affordable care.”

Most Americans support more transparency in health care pricing, with 74% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 91% of Republicans all supporting Trump’s February executive order that tasked his administration with putting for new regulations for hospitals to share more pricing data with customers. 

Andrew Bremberg, a former assistant to Trump, told The Daily Wire that the policy would be an “historic part of President Trump’s legacy and will forever change healthcare for the American people.”

The bill is also backed by Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Tim Sheehy (MT), Joni Ernst (IA) and Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan (NH).