WASHINGTON – President Trump signed a health care-related executive order Monday to help Americans avoid sticker shock for their medical procedures.

“With today’s historic action we are fundamentally changing the nature of the health care marketplace,” the president said. “We will empower patients with the information they need to search for the lowest cost and the highest quality care.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters this morning the idea is to give patients practical information that they can use to help save money. For example, if a hospital charges your insurer $3,500 for a type of echocardiogram and the same test costs $550 in a doctor’s office, you might go for the lower-price procedure to save on co-pays.

The new order instructs government agencies to create rules that will require hospitals to disclose prices that patients and insurers “actually pay” for services, Azar said.

He added that those costs would be laid out in an “easy-to-read, patient-friendly format.”

The new rules will also force health care providers and insurers to tell patients what out-of-pocket expenses to expect.

“Patients have been billed nearly $800 for saline, more than $6,000 for a drug test … and over $17,000 for stitches, to just stitch up a minor wound,” Trump said at the White House event.

“Often prices differ drastically between providers and hospitals for the exact same services.”

Azar talked about his own experience as a patient. He recalled having a doctor recommend a “routine heart exam” – an echocardio stress test. Because Azar got referred to a hospital it cost 10 times as much with a $5,500 list price, compared to the $550 it would have cost at a doctor’s office.

The hospital also wouldn’t initially tell Azar the price tag of the test.

“What if I had been a grandmother or a 20-something with a high-deductible health plan?” the HHS head mused. “This is the kind of experience that no American should ever have, and it’s the kind of thing President Trump is intent on making as rare as possible in American health care.”

Prior to signing the executive order the president briefly got political.

He ripped into Obamacare, though he said he had instructed Azar to do a “great job” with the remnants of the former president’s signature health care law.

“Obamacare doesn’t work, but it works at least adequately now,” Trump said.

Looking forward to the 2020 race, the president also name-dropped Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and mocked his call for Medicare-for-all.

“As we fight to increase transparency and lower costs for patients, over 120 Democrats in Congress support Bernie Sanders’ socialist takeover of health care,” Trump said.

He countered Sanders’ plan by saying he was bringing “choice and freedom” to the health care system.

“This is a truly historic day,” Trump went on – and then took aim at an old favorite. “I don’t know if it will be covered that way – by the fake news,” he said, eyeing the reporters at the back of the room.

“It’s pretty much going to blow everything away,” he said.