Consumers for Quality Care

09/24/2026

Price transparency alert! Only 35% of OH hospitals are compliant with existing federal requirements, despite having 5 years to adjust. Even worse, only 6% of OH hospitals make sufficient pricing data available. This is far below the nationwide average of 49%. Patients can't continue to live in the dark.

Of the 79 Ohio hospitals reviewed in the report, 35% were compliant and just 6% met the report’s criteria for sufficient pricing data.

09/23/2026

More hospitals are complying with price-transparency rules, but there’s still room for improvement. Roughly one-quarter of Nevada hospitals surveyed by PRA were found out of compliance.

More Nevada hospitals are posting their full prices online as required under a federal transparency rule, according to a new report that examined compliance at

09/22/2026

Only 61% of hospitals in Wisconsin are compliant with federal price transparency rules, yet the WHA continues to deny the existence of any issues. Patients disagree. Surprise bills, growing medical debt, and hospital monopolies are VERY real.

Wisconsin’s hospitals are defying federal price-transparency laws, keeping their patients in the dark about what their care really costs until too late to shop for a better price. Of course, the hospital lobby disagrees with the hard data on this, but who should we believe? Industry lobbyists? Or patients struggling with surprise bills, medical debt, and hospital monopolies that raising prices to unaffordable levels?

The Wisconsin Hospital Association is denouncing as “flawed” a new report from an advocacy group that found just 61% of the hospitals it assessed in Wisconsin are fully complying with federal price transparency rules. The nonprofit PatientRightsAdvocate.org last week issued...

09/16/2026

Medicare Advantage is one of the most data-rich programs in the federal government, and recent False Claims Act settlements show just how much fraud that data can hide. Overpayments drain the program while patients get squeezed on access. Oversight needs to catch up.

Over the last several months, there has been no shortage of commentary about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of...

09/15/2026

Another example of how consolidation raises costs: UnitedHealthcare pays doctors working for providers that it owns roughly 17% more than doctors working for independent providers. Same care. Just 17% more expensive, with patients footing the bill.

And UnitedHealthcare isn't alone. According to a report from Brookings, CVS, Elevance, and Humana all follow a similar model. When insurers and providers share an owner, patients lose the benefit of competition and pay the price.

New research raises troubling questions about healthcare costs.

09/14/2026

Native American and Alaska Native patients are exempt from new Medicaid work requirements. Native Hawaiians are not, even though clinicians warn the same barriers to care apply. More than half of Native Hawaiians live outside Hawai'i, cut off from the systems built to serve them.

On the Island of O’ahu, Native Hawaiians make up 60% of the homeless population, and the gap between average incomes and cost of living continues to rise. New Medicaid work requirements will only increase existing health disparities, limiting access to care.

Native Hawaiians will have to comply with the new work requirements in President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, despite facing significant obstacles to employment and healthcare.

09/10/2026

A family got awful news: stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Though the FDA recently approved a life-saving drug, the family’s insurance refused to cover it. It took >70 phone calls & 40 hours on the phone before their insurance would extend coverage to the drug.

PASCO, Wash. — A Pasco family said getting a newly approved cancer drug has become its own battle as Juan Solano faces stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

09/09/2026

A cancer patient's costs rose fivefold after his independent oncology practice was bought by a big hospital system. This is how industry consolidation works: same care, higher prices, more profits for big hospitals.

More and more oncology clinics are being snapped up by hospitals, and it's resulting in much higher bills for those seeking care.

09/08/2026

The debate about prior authorization isn’t simply about health care costs- it’s about saving lives. When insurers incorrectly label care, like PET scans for a Stage 4 cancer patient, as “not medically necessarily,” the delay can quite literally mean the difference between life or death.

Imaging tests like PET scans save lives. So why are insurers frequently denying them?

09/08/2026

Insurance companies when they say prior authorization isn't about padding their profits: