President Trump issued an executive order in February, titled “Empowering Patients Through Radical Price Transparency,” that promises to dramatically lower prices using the free market. Trump says his executive order will allow Americans to learn “the real price of health care services ... so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost.”

Although the goal is laudable, price transparency simply will not work as Trump claims — in fact, it cannot. “Transparency” doesn’t show the real price and cannot lower costs. It is also insufficient to assess medical quality — high, low or even substandard — because medical outcomes are not a part of price transparency.

In every commercial transaction — except the purchase of medical care — price is equal to payment. A seller may put something on sale and discount the original price, but still, the discounted price — openly advertised (i.e., transparent) or the buyer won’t know from whom to buy —........

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