WHY “MORE TRANSPARENCY” ISN’T ALWAYS GOOD HEALTHCARE POLICY

Margarita Kilpatrick
2 days ago
2 min read

Transparency sounds like a good thing. And in many cases, it is.

But in healthcare policy, I’ve seen a troubling pattern: Transparency gets weaponized. Not to inform decisions. Not to improve outcomes. But to delay progress, justify inaction, or create political cover.

It’s worth asking: Are we using transparency to drive solutions or to dodge responsibility?

TRANSPARENCY SHOULD CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY, NOT THEATER

Too often, public agencies or health systems cite “transparency” as a justification to slow-roll decisions. I’ve seen it in CMS rulemaking. I’ve seen it in how FDA panels get structured. I’ve seen it in Medicare reimbursement reform. Instead of pushing policies forward, leaders get bogged down in months of information-gathering, data-sharing, and “stakeholder engagement” that ends in the same indecision.

Let me be clear: I’m not against open dialogue. But when transparency becomes a stall tactic, we all lose:

Patients wait longer for reform.
Researchers hit roadblocks.
Providers operate in outdated, unclear frameworks.
Taxpayers fund an expensive dance that leads nowhere.

TRANSPARENCY ≠ LEADERSHIP

In leadership, I’ve found that clarity and action matter more than optics. Good policy leaders know when to listen and when to decide. They know that endless data-sharing without synthesis only creates noise. And they understand that public trust isn’t built by “transparency panels." It’s built by results.

If you’ve been in any public policy meeting, you’ve probably seen someone say, “Let’s make this more transparent,” as a way of avoiding a tough decision.

That’s not transparency. That’s a dodge.

TRANSPARENCY WITHOUT CONTEXT CREATES DISTORTION

Another danger: When complex data is shared in the name of openness, but without clear framing, it gets twisted.

→ A reimbursement rate change looks cruel when taken out of economic context.

→ An FDA delay looks cautious when it’s really just a bureaucratic logjam.

→ A funding priority shift gets framed as bias when it's actually rooted in new science.

In each case, data gets used as a weapon, not a tool. And once that happens, the conversation stops being about health policy. It becomes political theater.