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From PatientRightsAdvocate.org
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Washington, DC - June 24, 2019 - A coalition of seasoned veterans of the healthcare industry today issued the following quotes of support for the White House's executive order aimed at delivering healthcare price transparency for patients and their employers:
Cynthia Fisher, Founder and Chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org; life sciences CEO and entrepreneur: "This is a bold first step towards system-wide price transparency and a competitive marketplace in healthcare.
The American public as both patients and employers will greatly benefit by seeing real prices--readily searchable--before they receive care. By removing the blindfold from individuals and their employers, we can reduce the price of care and coverage and empower consumers to choose healthcare based upon the best quality of care at the lowest possible price. I will continue to bring the voices of patients and employers to the table as we work with this administration to shape policy that delivers real price transparency to consumers. Our work has just begun."
Tom Coburn, MD, Former U.S. Senator (OK) and Board Member for PatientRightsAdvocate.org: "If we want quality affordable healthcare, we need to apply the same forces on healthcare we have in everything else we buy. Markets allocate scarce resources and improve quality and outcomes. Knowing prices and outcomes will rapidly lower costs and improve quality, and the digital market will lower costs over a very short period of time."
Keith Smith, MD, Medical Director and CEO of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, Co-founder of the Free Market Medical Association: "The dysfunction of the healthcare system in this country is due to no failure of the free market but rather the absence of market competition. This dysfunction owes it origins primarily due to a lack of price information. True competition and market discipline is only possible when prices are not only discoverable and disclosed, but displayed.
The time has come for this basic market principle, one that influences every other industry, to reign in the excesses and abuses of the industry price gougers. True and transparent medical pricing will make runaway drug pricing, used to bankrupt patients and line the pockets of industry executives, a thing of the past."
Marni Jameson Carey, Executive Director of the Association of Independent Doctors: "Health care is the only industry where customers must purchase a product or service with no idea what it will ultimately cost, and then receive a non-negotiable bill for something they can't return.
Real price transparency is the first, and single most important step toward fixing America's broken, over-priced health-care system. Armed with real prices, Americans will be able to shop for their health care like they do everything else, by comparing price, quality and value. They can then choose the MRI that costs $500 instead of $3500.
Americans on both sides of the aisle want price transparency. The only ones who don't are those most threatened by the fact that consumers might learn the cost of their over-priced treatments and shop around."
