Legislation that would require Oklahoma hospitals to publicly post prices for roughly 300 services has advanced from a state House committee, overcoming the lobbying efforts of hospital officials who sought to kill the transparency measure.

Senate Bill 889, by state Sen. Casey Murdock and state Rep. Mark Lepak, requires Oklahoma hospitals to make public a digital file in a machine-readable format “that contains a list of all standard charges” for roughly 300 hospital items or services.

Lepak, R-Claremore, said the bill incorporates the Trump administration’s price-transparency executive order into state law.

Lepak said only about 12 percent of Oklahoma hospitals are reportedly complying with the Trump order.

“This all started in 2019 with an executive order, but compliance has been spotty since,” Lepak said.

Current Oklahoma law requires hospitals to report prices for about 24 services, Lepak said. His bill would dramatically expand reporting to include roughly 300 services.

One lawmaker who voted against the bill noted the opposition of hospital officials.

A recent report examined 23 Oklahoma hospitals and found that none were fully compliant with the federal hospital-price-transparency rule.

“Have you discussed this bill with the hospital association at all, because they’ve got some concerns with how this may affect them adversely?” asked state Rep. Cythia Roe, R-Lindsay.

“One of the (hospital association) representatives dropped by to tell me he was working against the bill, but that wasn’t a discussion so much as an acknowledgment that’s what he was doing,” Lepak responded. “I would say that price transparency for patients is extremely important.”

He suggested hospital officials oppose the bill, in part, because it includes an enforcement mechanism to ensure patient benefit.

“I guess the reason that they’re probably opposed to this is the enforceability part of this: They are not able to pursue collection as long as they are out of compliance with the statute,” Lepak said.

If a hospital does not comply with the price transparency law, SB 889 makes it illegal for that hospital to “initiate or pursue collection action” against a patient for a debt owed for services. Patients would also be allowed to sue hospitals for failure to comply with the price-transparency law. Hospitals that lose those cases would be required to refund any payment for services and also pay the patient a penalty equal to the amount of patient debt, and the hospital could be required to pay the patient’s attorney fees.

President Donald Trump issued an order on price transparency during his first term in June 2019. He issued another in February 2025.

A fact sheet released by the Trump White House on Feb. 25 stated that the president’s executive order on hospital price transparency “will ensure hospitals and insurers disclose actual prices, not estimates, and take action to make prices comparable across hospitals and insurers, including prescription drug prices.”

“When healthcare prices are hidden, large corporate entities like hospitals and insurance companies benefit at the expense of American patients,” the Trump administration document stated. “Price transparency will lower healthcare prices and help patients and employers get the best deal on healthcare.”

The document stated that one economic analysis found Trump’s price transparency rules could deliver savings of $80 billion for consumers, employers, and insurers.

The White House fact sheet included a comment from Trump.

“Our goal was to give patients the knowledge they need about the real price of healthcare services,” Trump said. “They’ll be able to check them, compare them, go to different locations, so they can shop for the highest-quality care at the lowest cost.”

The most recent hospital price transparency compliance report from PatientRightsAdvocate.org, published in November 2024, found that only 21.1 percent of hospitals that were reviewed nationwide were in full compliance with the federal requirement.

That report examined 23 Oklahoma hospitals. None were fully compliant with the federal hospital-price-transparency rule.

SB 889 previously passed the Oklahoma Senate on a 46-0 vote. But in the House Public Health Committee, it narrowly advanced on a 3-2 vote. (Several committee members were absent.) The bill now proceeds to the House Health and Human Services Oversight Committee.