(July 21, 2026) - This week, both sides of Capitol Hill are working on price transparency bills as Congress races toward the start of the traditional August recess. The House is set to go on recess this Friday, while the Senate will squeeze in one more week of sessions before members head home to begin the fall campaign season in earnest.
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee is set to markup H.R.9393, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act of 2026. The bill, recently advanced by unanimous consent from the Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee, aims to codify hospital price transparency regulations. Under the bill, hospitals would be required to publicly post all standard charges, consumer-friendly prices for at least 300 shoppable services, associated national provider identifier information and an accuracy attestation. Health plans would also be required to provide cost-sharing information and make public rate and payment data. In a nod to provider concerns, the bill would allow hospitals to use an online cost estimator tool. It is the less damaging and preferable of the two major bills moving through Congress on price transparency.
The more troubling bill is the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, S.2355, which the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will mark up on Wednesday, July 22. S.2355 has been discussed throughout the past year, and the provider community has submitted extensive comments and suggestions for improvement. Key feedback is highlighted in this letter from the American Hospital Association to HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy and Ranking Member Bernie Sanders.
The committee has responded with some changes to the bill; however, these changes do not address providers' underlying concerns. Among the changes are moving various compliance timeframes from monthly to quarterly or annually, compounding some non-compliance penalties over longer periods, and adding new definitions for applicable providers that now include non-hospital-affiliated surgical centers. However, the bill would still prohibit hospitals from using price estimator tools to achieve deemed compliance with price transparency requirements. The Kansas Hospital Association remains concerned with S.2355 as written because it would add a large amount of administrative work for hospitals that are already cash-strapped and would result in price publications that could ultimately be derived from the far-less onerous provisions of H.R.9393, a bill that builds on current administrative practice.
On a positive note, the House Ways and Means Committee unanimously forwarded the Improving Seniors Timely Access to Care Act (S.1816/H.R.3514), a bill authored by Senator Roger Marshall, MD, to the full House of Representatives. The bill would enact necessary reforms to Medicare Advantage plans to improve prior authorization processes and timelines. It is now set for a vote in the House and has a resonable chance of becoming law this Congress. Our thanks also go to Rep. Ron Estes, who helped advance this bill through the Ways and Means Committee, and to the entire Kansas House Delegation for cosponsoring it.