Several of the highest-profile federal health announcements of the past two years rest on voluntary industry agreements rather than regulation, and reporting published this week finds that the promised changes have largely not arrived on the timelines announced.
The finding matters for households because each agreement was presented as a consumer benefit: fewer synthetic dyes in food, lower drug prices, and fewer insurance preapproval requirements standing between a patient and a treatment. Voluntary commitments carry no enforcement mechanism, no penalty for missing a deadline, and in these cases limited public documentation.
