Americans want life to be affordable again, and the biggest roadblock is our broken healthcare system. This piece lays out why runaway medical costs squeeze wages, how secrecy and middlemen fuel the problem, and why putting price transparency and patient choice at the center is the clearest path to relief.
Voters have spoken in two recent elections: affordability matters. Too many families work harder for less while housing, education and medical bills keep climbing, and no single policy area eats into paychecks like healthcare.
Healthcare now takes up nearly one-fifth of the economy, becoming the largest cost for employers and a growing drain on family budgets. Every dollar swallowed by bloated medical expenses is a dollar not going to raises, hiring or investment. Until we fix healthcare, we can’t fix affordability.
Washington talks about healthcare, but it often focuses on shoring up insurance rather than cutting the actual cost of care. Endless subsidies and program tinkering let prices keep rising while taxpayers and employers foot the bill. Borrowing to prop up an unaffordable system is not reform; it is surrender.
There are uncomfortable truths both parties must accept: the system is already too expensive and set on a path to get worse unless structural change happens. Decades of complex public and private bureaucracy have failed to control costs or simplify care. That failure means ordinary families pay more and see less value for their money.
The third truth is clear: a new model must put patients, doctors and employers in charge instead of massive government and insurance-company bureaucracies. When consumers have clear prices and quality data, competition drives innovation and lower costs. Technology has enabled transparency and competition across industries; healthcare should be no different.
Right now the system is opaque and stacked with middlemen who hide prices and delay bills for months. The average family of four faces roughly $27,000 a year in health insurance costs, an amount that crowds out savings and opportunity for millions. Most workers never see the full bill, but they feel the pain through stagnant wages and rising household costs.
Secrecy breeds waste, fraud and frustration, and administrative overhead is a huge part of the problem. Estimates put administrative spending at 30% to 50% of all healthcare spending, meaning more dollars go to paperwork than to patient care. In practice, America’s healthcare system often has more middlemen than medicine.
Who wins from that complexity? Powerful interest groups, insurers, consultants and bureaucracies that profit when the system is confusing and costly. As Tom Cruise shouted in “Jerry Maguire”: “Show me the money.” Those who defend the status quo are protecting revenue streams, not patients.
Transparency flips the script by giving patients and providers the information they need to make smart choices. When employers and individuals can see negotiated prices and claims data, they can negotiate directly with providers and reward efficient care. That accountability forces wasteful players to either change or lose business.
President Trump took a major step with a price-transparency executive order that pushed hospitals and insurers to publish negotiated prices and supported Advance Explanations of Benefits so Americans could know costs before care. Enforcement slowed under the current administration, leaving patients without the full benefit of that early progress. The job is unfinished, and completing it is both practical and politically defensible.
The executive branch can act now using existing authorities to enforce AEOB rules and guarantee employers access to claims and pricing data while safeguarding privacy. With quick action from regulators, Americans could begin seeing Advance Explanations of Benefits in 2026. That would make transparency real and put pressure on prices at the point of care.
Congress should lock in these reforms by passing the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act to ensure employers and patients can access complete pricing information and stop third-party administrators from hiding costs. Making transparency statutory prevents backsliding and gives markets a fair shot to bring prices down. That combination of executive action and legislation would protect consumers and restore competitive incentives.
When patients and employers can see true prices, markets will start to eliminate waste on their own and reward providers who deliver value. Open pricing empowers direct negotiation, drives competition that middlemen cannot survive, and encourages investment in efficient care. That dynamic creates the conditions for lower costs, higher wages and broader economic growth if policymakers let markets work.
Turning transparency into law and enforcement is an achievable, concrete way to make life more affordable for working families. The tools exist; the choice is political will versus protecting a costly status quo that benefits entrenched interests. If policymakers want to restore opportunity and strengthen paychecks, making healthcare prices visible is where to begin.
