Fifteen years ago, Congress promised Americans price transparency in healthcare. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) required hospitals and insurers to make their prices public. That promise was never fulfilled. Hospitals posted partial or unusable information. Insurers buried their pricing files in formats no patient or employer could interpret. Enforcement was minimal, and the public remained exactly where it began — unable to know what care would cost before receiving it. Transparency without enforcement is optional, and optional transparency simply does not occur.

The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act, introduced by Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, is the first serious effort to correct this failure. It does not rewrite the ACA. It enforces a commitment Congress already made. The bill requires hospitals and insurers to publish clear, accurate, and comparable prices; it sets standards for how that information must be presented; and it establishes meaningful penalties for those who continue to hide what care actually costs. In short, it makes transparency real rather than aspirational.

The public’s frustration with healthcare pricing is well-founded. Hospitals and insurers know exact negotiated rates for every service. Patients do not. Prices for identical procedures can........

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