It goes without saying that the administration of President Donald Trump has quite a bit on its plate at the moment.
Domestic issues, forthcoming midterms, and the Iran conflict are all thorny topics the administration is grappling with, while navigating the pitfalls of a hyper-partisan political landscape.
Despite that, however, the Trump administration is still tackling issues that many would consider bipartisan — like exorbitant and mysterious hospital billing practices.
According to The Hill, the Trump administration has warned hundreds of hospitals that they were not in compliance with federal price transparency requirements.
In laymen’s terms, the Trump administration has identified hundreds of hospitals had failed to disclose the actual costs of medical services.
The Associated Press actually acquired the list of 519 hospitals that had been issued either a warning or a corrective action request.
(If you are curious as to see if your local medical facility made the list, it can be viewed here, courtesy of the AP.)
Interestingly, there is only one state whose hospitals received a grand total of zero warnings, and that’s Alaska. Every other state had at least one warning issued to a local hospital.
The highest number of warnings came in Texas, where a whopping 42 citations were issued.
Of note, Texas hospitals have had a rough go of it lately.
While Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) wasn’t on the AP’s reported list, the medical facility had already run afoul of Trump’s Department of Justice for outright allegations of fraud and performing so-called “gender care” surgery on minors.
“Under the terms of the agreements, which the Department of Justice reached in coordination with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, TCH will pay $10 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures,” the DOJ release states.
“The Department alleges this conduct violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws.
“Critically, in addition to terminating these services, TCH has committed to establishing the first-of-its-kind clinic dedicated to restorative care for detransitioners.”
Texas was followed by California, which came in with a hefty 38 citations.
The list further calls out the exact hospitals (including its address and type of warning received) that have run afoul of pricing transparency.
One of the biggest reasons Trump is fighting for pricing transparency is because he believes that these mysterious prices are driving up health care costs.
Failure to comply with these warnings could lead to annual fines up to $2 million. An unnamed official told the Associated Press that more hospitals are likely to be warned soon.
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