Hospital Prices are Crushing Americans: It’s Time for Bipartisan Bold Action to Lower Costs

When Families USA and the right-leaning Paragon Institute agree on something, Congress should take notice. Both organizations — with very little else in common — have released major reports this year reaching the same conclusion: sky-high hospital prices are the leading driver of the health care affordability crisis in America, and Congress has failed to act.

In May, Families USA published “Big Systems, Bigger Profits: Consumers are Paying the Price of Corporate Hospital Power,” finding that a handful of large corporate health systems dominate the majority of the hospital market and exploit that dominance to overcharge consumers, sometimes as much as three or four times the Medicare rate, raking in tens of millions in annual profit. The Paragon Institute’s report similarly finds that over the past three decades hospital prices have risen three times faster than inflation and twice as fast as wages.

This is not a new problem. Families USA’s report adds to decades of evidence showing a clear and disturbing trend: the more hospital chains consolidate, the higher prices Americans pay, in their premiums and their out-of-pocket costs. What is new is the growing urgency. The evidence is overwhelming, the coalition of strange bedfellows is widening, and the consumers and patients who cannot afford their medical bills are desperate for action.

More and more data from stakeholders across the health care system continue to point to the same conclusion: high hospital prices are driving up the cost of care for all and it’s time to finally do something about it. Congress must meet this moment and rein in the rampant consolidation and other systemic abuses that have created anti-competitive markets in our health care system and allowed for unreasonably high hospital prices.

Among the major takeaways from the report, Families USA found every state dominated by a handful of system-owned hospitals, which not only charged higher rates on average but also brought in nearly $28 million every year in profits per hospital, nearly ten times more than independent, unaffiliated hospitals that averaged roughly $3 million per year in net income.

The Biggest Systems, in Highly Consolidated Markets, Charge the Most:

• HCA Healthcare (158 hospitals, 20 states): charged 339% of Medicare; $70.3 million in net income per hospital, per year
• Tenet Healthcare (70 hospitals, 10 states): charged 312% of Medicare; $24.2 million in net income per hospital, per year
• CommonSpirit Health, a non-profit (140 hospitals, 17 states): charged 306% of Medicare; $17.4 million in net income per hospital, per year
• AdventHealth, a non-profit (38 hospitals, 8 states): charged 410% of Medicare; $38.4 million in net income per hospital, per year

A growing chorus of voices on Capitol Hill and beyond are starting to take notice and have made some small but important progress toward reining in big hospital systems and their inflated prices.

In April, the House Ways and Means Committee brought CEOs from four of our nation’s biggest health systems to testify on high costs. While the executives largely escaped this hearing unscathed, the hearing signals a growing appetite for accountability.

More recently, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health invited Families USA’s Senior Director of Health Policy Sophia Tripoli to testify on transparency in health care as the committee debated new legislation that would address transparency of prices, ownership status, care denials, coding abuses and the bad behaviors of brokers and agents in Medicare Advantage. As Tripoli stated in her testimony, “transparency is essential to any meaningful effort to hold corporate health systems accountable.” But transparency alone isn’t enough. Congress must embrace bold reforms that will go directly at the source of this health care affordability crisis.

As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Congress should be feeling more pressure than ever to take action on unaffordable health care costs. The American public is already there. Recent polling shows voters strongly support major policy reforms like directly limiting the prices that hospitals can charge and eliminating legal loopholes that allow providers to charge more for the same care.

Now is the time for bold, bipartisan solutions that will lower costs and improve our health care for patients and families. Follow Families USA’s affordability and value work to learn more about how you can call on Congress to demand they rein in corporate greed and high hospital prices and lower costs for all.