Make hospital and insurer price transparency requirements permanent
Health care
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Hospitals and insurers hold their own price data and can publish it today; full voluntary compliance would achieve the goal with no new law. Industry resistance has been the main barrier: the American Hospital Association sued to block the federal price transparency rule in 2019 and appealed after losing in 2020, arguing that disclosure of negotiated rates burdened hospitals. The issue is live in 2026, and the requirements still rest on regulation and executive action rather than a dedicated statute. A February 2025 executive order directed disclosure of actual prices instead of estimates. CMS enforcement of the tightened rules began April 1, 2026, while the bills that would write transparency permanently into law have not passed Congress. A future administration could unwind by rule what was created by rule, which is exactly the impermanence this position addresses. Owners do not have to wait: shareholder pressure on health companies to comply fully and publish their prices delivers the outcome directly, and owners can direct those companies to stop lobbying against codification.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Common Ground of the American People: Health Care, Program for Public Consultation / Voice of the People, 2026 (study July 2024)
- American Hospital Association to appeal ruling on price transparency lawsuit, Healthcare Finance News, 2020-06
- CMS Enforcement of Updated Hospital Price Transparency Requirements to Begin on April 1, 2026, Dentons, 2026-03-25
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. No shareholder proposal, investor letter or coalition engagement asking hospital operators or insurers to comply with or support price transparency rules was located. The American Hospital Association named in the rationale is an industry lobby, not a shareholder advocate. Adjacent shareholder activity found (a 2025 HCA proposal on hospital acquisition impact reports, an ICCR proposal at UnitedHealth on practices that limit access to care) does not concern price transparency.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Common Ground of the American People's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.