Hospitals must post prices online—or face daily fines starting 2028
H.R. 9393 — Lower Costs, More Transparency Act of 2026 · Filed by Brett Guthrie (R-KY) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jun 23, 2026 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill requires hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, clinical diagnostic laboratories, and imaging providers to publicly disclose their prices for medical services starting January 1, 2028. Hospitals must publish standard charges and negotiated prices for at least 300 shoppable services in a consumer-friendly, machine-readable format. The bill enforces compliance through civil monetary penalties ranging from $300/day for small hospitals to $35/bed/day for large hospitals, with escalation for persistent noncompliance. Ordinary patients gain access to price information to shop for care; hospitals face new administrative and compliance costs.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a mandatory public disclosure requirement for healthcare providers' prices, enforced through regulatory compliance monitoring and civil penalties. It is fundamentally a transparency and consumer-protection measure, not a subsidy, carve-out, or deregulation.
What the text implies
- Payer-specific negotiated charges must be disclosed by name and plan, potentially exposing competitive pricing strategies and enabling reverse-engineering of negotiation leverage across payers.
- De-identified maximum and minimum negotiated charges may still allow sophisticated actors to infer individual payer rates through data triangulation, particularly in concentrated markets.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Healthcare price comparison platforms and consumer health technology vendors; Self-insured employers and health plans (via improved price data for negotiation); Patients with high deductibles or out-of-pocket costs (via price transparency enabling shopping)