Making Healthcare More Affordable Starts with Transparency

From grocery costs to utility bills, Mississippi families are being asked to stretch their dollars further. Sadly, healthcare has become yet another expense that takes an increasingly larger bite out of a family’s budget too.

For many, finding an affordable healthcare plan is difficult enough. But even when you have insurance, the premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs can add up quickly. In 2024 alone, U.S. healthcare spending reached $5.3 trillion, accounting for roughly 18 percent of our nation’s economy. Employers spent more than $1.4 trillion on group health-plan coverage that same year.

These costs are unsustainable. And if we’re serious about making healthcare more affordable, we need to take a closer look at where all that money is going.

This month, I joined Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Oz, and other leaders at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to discuss this very issue and ask: If you know how much your car costs before you buy it, shouldn’t you know how much your medical bill will be before you’re treated?

President Trump’s administration has made tremendous strides in this respect. In fact, I reached out to the Department of Labor this month as well to specifically applaud their efforts to bring greater transparency to healthcare costs and pledge stronger oversight of Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs.

To me, if we’re going to bring healthcare costs down, we first need to know exactly what we’re paying for. To start, that means health-plan service providers should be disclosing their fees, making detailed claims and payment information more accessible, and giving employers better tools to audit their healthcare spending. In other words, make it easier to follow the money.

You may be wondering why a State Treasurer is getting involved in healthcare policy. As a state financial officer, I have a responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars. That means overseeing public investments and keeping a close eye on government spending, including programs like Medicaid and health insurance plans for state employees. When healthcare costs go up, taxpayers often end up footing part of the bill.

Greater transparency would help change that. Giving families and employers better access to pricing and payment information would allow them to identify unnecessary charges, negotiate better deals, and make more informed decisions about the plans offered.

Standardized billing and audit data would also make it easier to catch mistakes, uncover fraud, and identify wasteful spending. And by exposing excessive administrative fees and other hidden costs, we can begin putting pressure on the system to bring those expenses down.

Ultimately, that’s the goal; less money wasted on unnecessary fees and administrative costs means more opportunities to lower premiums, reduce out-of-pocket expenses, and leave more money in the pockets of hardworking families.

As your Mississippi Treasurer, I’ll continue fighting for greater transparency, less fraud, and better stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Because at the end of the day, Mississippians work too hard for their money to see it swallowed up by waste, hidden fees, and a healthcare system that costs more than it should.

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