Christopher M. Whaley, PhD, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health in June 2026 that improving transparency is an essential step toward addressing the high and rising cost of U.S. health care. He argued that commercial health care prices are often far higher than Medicare rates, vary widely without corresponding differences in quality, and are driven largely by provider consolidation, vertical integration, and increasingly opaque ownership structures involving hospitals, insurers, and private equity. While patient-facing price transparency tools alone have produced only modest savings, Whaley emphasized that transparency has been invaluable for employers, researchers, and policymakers in identifying excessive prices, informing payment reforms, promoting competition, and supporting initiatives such as reference-based pricing that have generated substantial savings without harming quality. He urged Congress to strengthen and enforce existing price transparency requirements, improve the usability of Transparency-in-Coverage data, create a centralized national database of provider ownership and control, guarantee employer access to claims data, increase transparency around Medicare Advantage broker compensation and encounter data, and support legislation that gives regulators and purchasers the information needed to curb consolidation, improve competition, and make health care more affordable. 

David J. Meyers, PhD, testified before the Joint Economic Committee in June 2026 that while Medicare Advantage (MA) offers important benefits to many beneficiaries, the program systematically overpays private insurers by more than $100 billion annually due to payment policies that do not accurately reflect the cost of care. Drawing on recent research, he identified six primary drivers of excess spending: aggressive risk-score coding, insurer-provider vertical integration, favorable selection of healthier enrollees, duplicative federal payments for veterans enrolled in both MA and VA health care, inefficiencies in the Star Ratings Quality Bonus Program, and rapidly growing broker compensation. Meyers argued that most of these excess payments are not fraud, but rather "waste and abuse" enabled by current program rules, resulting in higher costs for taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries through increased Part B premiums. He urged Congress to strengthen payment integrity by reforming risk adjustment, increasing ownership transparency, enhancing audit authority, eliminating duplicative payments, redesigning the Quality Bonus Program, and establishing clearer guardrails on broker compensation, while preserving the core structure and benefits of Medicare Advantage.

CAHPR research examining nonprofit hospitals’ tax-exempt status and community benefit obligations informed federal oversight efforts in 2025. A CAHPR study documenting that nonprofit hospitals receive more than $37 billion annually in tax benefits while providing over $25 billion less in community benefit spending contributed to growing congressional attention on the issue. Building on this evidence, CAHPR researcher Chris Whaley was invited to testify before the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Oversight in September 2025, where he presented findings showing that nonprofit and for-profit hospitals operate similarly across pricing, charity care, and financial performance, despite the substantial subsidies nonprofit hospitals receive. His testimony highlighted the need for strengthened accountability and clearer standards to ensure that federal tax benefits translate into tangible community value.

CAHPR research on health care price transparency and the impacts of provider consolidation has informed federal discussions on how to lower costs and improve market competitiveness. Drawing on this body of work, which documents wide variation in commercial prices, the role of consolidation in driving higher costs, and the value of expanding tools like Transparency-in-Coverage data, CAHPR researcher Chris Whaley was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in July 2024. His testimony highlighted that employer-sponsored insurance premiums now approach $24,000 per family, that commercial hospital prices average 254% of Medicare rates, and that price transparency is essential for enabling employers, purchasers, and policymakers to steer patients toward lower-cost, high-quality care.

CAHPR’s research on health care consolidation, competition, and the growing dominance of large vertically and horizontally integrated health care entities helped elevate national attention to the risks consolidation poses for affordability, access, and system resilience. Drawing on this work, which documents how consolidation raises prices, reduces quality, increases systemic vulnerability, and undermines fair competition, CAHPR faculty member Erin Fuse Brown was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights in June 2024. In her testimony, she outlined how highly concentrated hospital, insurer, and physician markets contribute to rising spending, reduced patient choice, and heightened systemic fragility, and she presented policy options to strengthen antitrust oversight, improve transparency, and curb harmful consolidation. CAHPR researchers continue to build the evidence base policymakers rely on as they assess reforms to bolster competition, enhance health system resilience, and protect patients and purchasers from the harms of unchecked market power.