The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., should overturn a lower court ruling upholding a Department of Health and Human Services final rule requiring hospitals to disclose the rates they agree to accept from insurers, the AHA told the court today, joined by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Children's Hospital Association, Federation of American Hospitals and several member hospitals.

Calling the hospital groups’ legal challenge to the rule a “close call,” the lower court nevertheless upheld the rule as a reasonable statutory interpretation of Section 2718(e) of the 2010 Affordable Care Act by the agency under a legal theory announced in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), which instructs a court to defer to such reasonable agency interpretation.

Responding to a brief from the government in support of the lower court’s ruling, the hospital groups said the rule clearly exceeds HHS’s statutory authority. 

“Even if Chevron applies—it does not—HHS’s new interpretation is impermissible,” they write. “The government does not dispute that HHS’s Rule implausibly calls thousands of different rates the ‘standard charge’ for each item or service, and would vest HHS with a hitherto undiscovered disclosure power. The government does not contest that HHS compels disclosure of rates that depend on care that patients receive, which hospitals cannot calculate in advance. Nor does the government dispute that HHS’s Rule radically surpasses what any State requires, or that HHS mistakenly rested the Rule’s projections of benefits and burdens on those inapposite state regimes. The Rule also transgresses the First Amendment’s restrictions on compelled speech and the [Administrative Procedure Act’s] bar on unreasoned agency action.”

Related News Articles

Headline
The AHA Aug. 11 urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to prioritize payments to hospitals from the Rural Health Transformation Program. The…
Headline
The AHA and Federation of American Hospitals Aug. 8 filed an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in support of the U.S.…
Headline
President Trump Aug. 7 issued an executive order, “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking,” requiring government agencies to review new and discretionary…
Headline
The Senate Appropriations Committee July 31 advanced the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services,…
Chairperson's File
Public
The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act will bring big changes to health care. AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack joined me for a Leadership Dialogue…
Headline
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee yesterday voted 12-11 along party lines to recommend the confirmation of Brian Christine, M.D., to…