The following content is sponsored by Save Our States and is written by its founder and executive director, Trent England.
America used to be the undisputed healthcare leader of the world, yet today we are paying more and often getting less. For decades, Americans have been lectured that healthcare is complicated, prices are mysterious, and costs can only go up. Families have no real choice but to pay whatever bill arrives. But what if the real problem isn’t that healthcare is complicated, it’s that the system has been allowed to operate in the dark, where the industry, not the American people, come first.
Today, Americans are being crushed by healthcare costs that grow faster than wages. Often, these costs show up in insurance premiums that burden families and employers alike. Small businesses struggle with rising premiums that make it harder to hire, harder to give raises, and harder to compete. Yet, despite spending more than any country on earth, we still can’t answer the most basic question before getting care: what will it actually cost?
The good news is that President Trump can fix this and transform healthcare. The solution begins with something simple, powerful, and long overdue: give every American the right to see real prices before choosing their care and then the power to buy the care they choose. These two reforms, giving healthcare purchasers actual prices upfront and giving Americans greater control of their healthcare dollars, would put consumers in the driver’s seat and change health care forever. Together, they are the most pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-growth healthcare agenda in a generation.
Healthcare is the only major sector where Americans are expected to buy a product blind. It’s hard to imagine booking a flight, buying a car, or signing a mortgage without knowing what you’ll pay until you get a bill weeks or months later. Heck, we wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee that way. So, when it comes to our health, we should not be forced to make decisions without all the information. Nor should we trust a system that has become dominated by big businesses that benefit from hiding this information from us.
The Trump administration can act quickly to begin a domino effect of change by requiring mandatory advanced notice to patients that shows exactly what insurance will cover and what you will pay out-of-pocket – to let you know before you owe. This would give consumers a chance to plan, shop, and save on care. It would begin pulling back the curtain on costs that have traditionally been hidden until it was too late to find a better price.
Starting as early as 2026, the administration can make this a reality. And it’s wildly popular among most Americans. It gets to the heart of issues that Americans on Main Street care most about, including the cost of living and the availability of good jobs. Giving power to consumers is the fastest path to lower bills, fewer surprises, and more financial security. It’s a tangible change Americans can see and feel before next November.
If we combine this price transparency with purchasing power — letting Americans shop for their own care — we will see a functional market begin to emerge. The Trump administration is well on its way with Executive Orders focused on “radical transparency” – Transparency in Coverage and Hospital Price Transparency rules – it just needs to implement and enforce those rules.
What makes these reforms transformative is that they shift the power away from big industry and into the hands of the American people. When we see real prices, we can make real choices. When transparency replaces secrecy, competition replaces complacency. And when healthcare costs finally fall, workers keep more of what they earn. That is how you reduce inflation. That is how you raise wages. That is how you grow jobs. And that is how you rebuild trust in a healthcare system that feels rigged against ordinary Americans.
Giving Americans the power to choose and buy their own care isn’t just a healthcare fix. It’s a cost-of-living fix, a wage-boosting fix, and an economic-growth fix.
It’s the rare reform that helps patients, workers, families, small businesses, and the broader economy all at once. Transparency is not only good healthcare policy, but also good politics and the kind of common-sense solution that will contribute to President Trump’s legacy.
This is the clear path to make healthcare affordable: Give consumers a right to see the real price, make the industry compete, and let Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.
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