John Kennedy, a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, shared a series of tweets on July 21, 2025, addressing hospital billing transparency and federal enforcement actions related to healthcare pricing.
In his initial post, Kennedy expressed concerns about the anxiety patients face not only due to illness or injury but also because of medical bills. He stated: “It can be scary to go to the hospital when you’re sick or injured, but it can be even more terrifying to get the bill. Hospitals can’t keep denying patients the info they need to make the best decisions for their families.” (July 21, 2025).
He went on to discuss federal efforts aimed at increasing price transparency in hospitals. In another tweet posted on the same day, Kennedy said: “@POTUS has been fighting to address this problem since his first term. He issued an executive order in 2019 to have CMS make a rule requiring hospitals to provide easy-to-find pricing on their websites. The Biden administration, though, rarely enforced the rule.” (July 21, 2025).
Highlighting what he described as limited enforcement by current authorities, Kennedy added: “President Biden’s CMS issued violations against just 4 hospitals during his first 2 years in office. Today, as few as 21% of American hospitals have fully complied with the rule.” (July 21, 2025).
Efforts around hospital price transparency have evolved over recent years. In June 2019, an executive order directed federal agencies—including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—to require hospitals to publish easily accessible pricing information online for consumers’ benefit. However, compliance rates remain low and enforcement has faced criticism for its limited scope.
