Sonderling, in His First Speech as Labor Secretary, Unveils the Healthcare Price Transparency Rule at HHS, Oct. 5, 2026
October 5, 2026 · U.S. Department of Labor · 0:04:38
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling delivered remarks at the Department of Health and Human Services in a video the Department of Labor released on October 5, 2026, introducing himself, as he put it, in “my first speech not as acting secretary but as the labor secretary.” The event, hosted with Administrator Mehmet Oz and counterparts from HHS, CMS, Treasury, and the FTC as Sonderling named them, announced the administration’s new transparency in coverage rule on healthcare prices.
Sonderling framed Labor’s stake in the rule from the department’s own jurisdiction: most Americans get their health insurance through their employer, and the Department of Labor protects the health benefits workers receive through their employers — 2.6 million group health care plans covering 136 million workers and their families, as he stated the figures. He said President Trump’s first-term rule brought healthcare pricing into the open but left enormous raw data that could be difficult to access, understand, and compare — “in some cases, you practically needed to be a data scientist to make sense of it,” as he put it — and that the new rule solves that problem, giving workers and employers usable information to understand and compare healthcare costs so providers have to compete for their business. He closed by introducing the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury as the next speaker.
Why it matters
The speech is Sonderling’s debut as confirmed Secretary, and it places the Labor Department — through the Employee Benefits Security Administration’s jurisdiction over employer group health plans — at the center of the administration’s healthcare price-transparency program alongside HHS, CMS, and Treasury. It is the first governing statement of his confirmed tenure on this site’s record.
Scoreboard watch
Scoreboard watch: the new transparency in coverage rule announced October 5, 2026, and the coverage figures Sonderling put with it — 2.6 million group health plans covering 136 million workers and families, as he stated them. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.
Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, “Secretary Keith Sonderling delivers remarks at HHS” (Oct. 5, 2026, embedded above; remarks as delivered by Secretary Sonderling).
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