| On Monday at its headquarters, the Department of Health and Human Services is hosting executives and advocates associated with price transparency platforms, employers, and others for an event focusing on health care price transparency, according to invitations I obtained and conversations with multiple people familiar with the upcoming event. The event is set to run a little longer than two hours, and it will feature remarks from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, plus panel discussions with outside advocates. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Francis Brooke and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson will also be speaking. → The event comes as the Trump administration is updating the rules around what information health plans and hospitals have to report — and how they have to report it. The proposal aims to make the massive pricing files more standardized, accurate and usable. Those revamped rules — known as transparency in coverage, or TiC, requirements — cleared White House review on Thursday, which means they could be released at any time. And while the full agenda for the event isn’t clear, two people attending say that it is at least partially tied to the TiC rules. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the event. One of those people said that it could also include rules about prescription drug data requirements, a long-awaited part of the transparency landscape. “There’s a likelihood that they’ll announce something [on drug price transparency], even if it’s not on Monday [but] before the end of this year,” the person said, adding that the federal government could be spurred by several states that are already implementing their own prescription drug data requirements. HHS said it “does not comment or speculate on potential future actions or rulemaking,” and did not answer questions about the event or its content. Why it matters: The rules around price transparency, initially established during the first Trump administration, are a signature part of the White House’s affordability agenda. The issue also serves as an undercurrent to the midterm election, as candidates in both parties increasingly focus on health care costs and certain moves to make prices more transparent — as part of an effort that advocates and policymakers hope will help bring down drug costs. “The Trump administration is committed to advancing meaningful health care price transparency so patients and families have clearer, more actionable information about the cost of care,” HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in a statement. “Greater transparency can empower consumers to make more informed health care decisions while strengthening accountability among health plans, payers and providers.” Here’s what else we know: - Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of Purchaser Business Group on Health (PBGH), a coalition of large employers that purchase health benefits, will be on a panel at the event, a spokesperson for the group confirmed.
Mitchell will be talking about “the importance of price transparency, how employers are leveraging price transparency data to improve benefit design, lower health care costs, and improve quality and access — and what employers’ next steps are in leveraging the data’s insights,” the spokesperson said. - Chris O’Dell, president of Turquoise Health, will also be attending, a spokesperson for the company confirmed. Turquoise Health is one of the companies that has built a business around the federal transparency push, turning the vast trove of insurer and hospital pricing files into data that employers and others can actually analyze.
What to watch: In addition to figuring out the nitty gritty of what’s in the revamped transparency regulations, the event is running parallel to a congressional effort to codify and bolster the federal rules. The House and Senate have differing ideas of how far to go with the legislation, though, and many advocates would like to have those differences reconciled in time for inclusion in any year-end government funding package. “These types of events can be a catalyst for something getting done,” one of the attendees said about the federal rulemaking potentially prompting Congress to push the issue across the finish line. “There’s always hope.” Conservative group Americans for Prosperity Action is putting $22.4 million behind Republican Senate candidates in five battleground states, with health care emerging as one of the group’s main lines of attack against Democrats. The Koch network-aligned super PAC is launching digital, television and radio ads through Election Day backing Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska, Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa, Mike Rogers in Michigan, John Sununu in New Hampshire and Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, while bashing their opponents’ views on health care, immigration and taxes, among other topics. Nathan Nascimento, executive director of AFP Action, frames the contests as choosing between candidates who support “a government that controls you and one that empowers you.” While most of the ads broadly frame Democrats as pushing government-run health care, the messaging in the Michigan advertising is more specific, pushing back on Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s Medicare-for-all proposal. Why it matters: Health care appears to be partially serving as a shorthand for a much broader fight over the role of government and the balance of power on Capitol Hill. El-Sayed has indeed made Medicare-for-all a centerpiece of his campaign. He has argued that a universal system could reduce what Americans pay overall by replacing premiums, deductibles and co-pays with a government-financed system funded in part through higher taxes on wealthy Americans. In an August interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, El-Sayed said that his vision of Medicare-for-all wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of private insurers. “It’s not about taking anything away. It’s about adding the guarantee, the security of having health insurance in your life in the way that seniors across this country have been able to benefit from,” El-Sayed said. “And it would make this more sustainable for seniors as well.” The bigger picture: AFP Action’s new buy comes as political parties and outside groups pour money into Senate races where health care is competing with inflation, energy costs and other pocketbook issues for voters’ attention. As of Wednesday, total advertising spending in these five Senate races alone reached nearly $474 million, according to data from AdImpact. The money game is being dominated by groups backing Republicans, the data show. | 
