Anything that allows consumers (be they individuals or organizations) to more accurately understand the pricing of the medical services they are receiving is a good thing, as is anything that makes the nature of “cost shifting” more transparent.
This doesn’t address the underlying problem however: in a fee-for-service system the incentives are to maximize the services delivered, rather than optimize the cost/benefit ratio of the results achieved.
So while more transparent pricing and less cost shifting would certainly help to make the scale of the problem clearer, it doesn’t really get us much closer to reducing “the cost of healthcare” - just about everyone *already* knows that the current system is incredibly inefficient and wasteful - the problem is what to do about it.
But if that is true why does the entire rest of the economy work fine on a "fee-for-service" or "fee-for-goods" system?
Isn't the incentive of every other business to "maximize the services delivered" or maximize the goods sold?
As far as I can tell the customers keep the vendors in line pretty well when they know what the services or goods cost.