Opinion: CBO’s dismissal of health care price transparency is based on faulty premises
Can price transparency meaningfully reduce the outrageous cost of health care and coverage? I believe it can. So do the last several presidential administrations, led by Democrats and Republicans, and nearly 90% of Americans, according to numerous recent polls.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, doesn’t seem to think highly of transparency. Its new report on strategies to reverse runaway commercial health insurance costs estimates that greater price transparency will lead to only “very small price reductions” of about 0.1% to 1% over ten years.
