Hospitals say affordability needs shared action across healthcare

Health care affordability is a pressing issue across the country, from everyday household conversations to policy debates on Capitol Hill. Americans are feeling the pressure of rising costs and making difficult decisions about whether to fill a prescription, schedule a follow-up appointment or delay care altogether. Those realities are especially visible in hospitals, where clinicians and leaders see firsthand how financial strain affects patients and their ability to get needed treatment.

Several forces contribute to the problem. The source points to the growing burden of chronic disease, unsustainable pharmaceutical pricing, insurance benefit design and complex administrative requirements that add expense without clearly improving care. Against that backdrop, the American Hospital Association says it shares the urgency to act, but also argues that no one segment of the health care system can solve affordability by itself. Real progress, the op-ed says, will require shared responsibility and coordinated action.

That theme runs through the piece: everyone in the system has a role to play, including hospitals. According to the op-ed by American Hospital Association President and CEO Rick Pollack, hospitals across the country are already changing how care is delivered so it can be more affordable, accessible and patient-centered. The article says those efforts are being carried out in communities large and small, and they focus on practical changes that can improve affordability for patients while protecting access and quality.

The first area the op-ed highlights is keeping people healthy. Expanding access to preventive services, primary care and behavioral health can help patients get care earlier, before problems become more serious and more expensive. The piece also points to telehealth and emerging technologies as ways to reach people more easily. In addition, it says lower out-of-pocket costs, including reduced co-pays and deductibles, could significantly improve affordability for patients. The basic idea is to address health issues before they become costlier crises.

The second area is transforming care delivery and rewarding value. The op-ed says hospitals and health systems need stronger accountable care models and better coordination across providers so patients receive the right care at the right time in the right setting. It also identifies inefficiencies that can drive up cost, including fragmented coordination, duplicative or low-value services and payment incentives that reward volume over value. The article says those problems need to be addressed collaboratively across the system.

A third focus is administrative complexity. The op-ed argues that paperwork and regulatory burden misdirect care resources and add billions in unnecessary costs every year. It calls for simplifying and speeding up prior authorization for medicines and procedures, standardizing billing processes and reducing duplicative, outdated regulations. According to the piece, easing those burdens would free up time and resources for patient care rather than paperwork.

The fourth area involves the cost of drugs and devices. The article says those costs should be addressed by increasing competition from generics and biosimilars, advancing value-based payment for high-cost therapies and curbing practices that delay more affordable alternatives. The op-ed does not provide additional detail on specific policy steps, but it frames prescription and device spending as a key part of the affordability challenge.

The fifth area is innovation. Hospitals, the piece says, are leading innovation in care delivery, treatment and technology to improve patient care and health outcomes. Examples listed in the op-ed include hospital-at-home models, remote monitoring, predictive analytics and early detection tools. These approaches, the article says, can prevent complications and bring care closer to patients.

Taken together, the op-ed describes these efforts as part of a broader transformation in the hospital field. The goal is to deliver more connected and coordinated care that improves outcomes while lowering costs for patients, taxpayers and the overall health care delivery system. The article presents hospitals as active participants in that work rather than passive observers of the affordability problem.

At the same time, the piece acknowledges serious financial challenges facing hospitals themselves. In most cases, hospitals do not set prices, the op-ed says. Medicare and Medicaid pay for more than 70% of hospital inpatient days, and those programs set payment rates administratively that are typically below the cost of care. The article says Medicare paid 83 cents for every dollar hospitals spent caring for patients in 2024, which it says resulted in more than $100 billion in underpayments.

Hospitals are also facing higher expenses of their own. The op-ed says inflation, along with hospitals’ costs for labor, supplies and medications, continues to rise as hospitals care for more patients who are sicker and medically complex. It also states that hospitals’ costs for delivering care grew about twice as fast as reimbursements for patient care in 2025, meaning hospitals absorbed much of the increase instead of shifting it to patients or payers.

Even with those pressures, the article says hospitals must stay focused on what matters most to patients: making care more affordable in this country. The op-ed argues that affordability cannot be improved in isolation. Hospitals cannot do it alone, and neither can insurers, drug manufacturers, employers or the government. Each part of the system has an individual role and responsibility in bringing costs down.

The conclusion of the piece is a call for cooperation. The path forward will not be simple, it says, but it is clear that stakeholders must work together, remain focused on solutions and keep patients at the center of every decision. Hospitals, Pollack writes, are ready to partner across the health care system to make care more affordable and accessible because the people and communities they serve are counting on them to get it right. The op-ed frames affordability as a shared challenge and a shared responsibility, with hospitals already taking steps as part of that effort.