Pennsylvania lawmakers are proposing several initiatives aimed at helping consumers shop for health care services and find the best prices for prescription drugs.

The proposals, introduced Monday by Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, are the state's first steps toward so-called "price transparency," allowing consumers to know upfront what medical treatments will cost.

The initiatives are part of a package of health care reforms being pushed by Gov. Ed Rendell under his Prescription for Pennsylvania plan, which is aimed at reducing health care costs and making affordable coverage available to uninsured Pennsylvanians.

The bill would require pharmacies in the state to submit retail prices for the 150 most popular drugs and their generic equivalents to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. The council would post them on its Web site so consumers could comparison shop.

Pharmacies would update the lists monthly and also make them available at the store. Pharmacies could change prices at any time as long as they updated their in-store lists at least once a week.

The list of the 150 drugs would be determined by the director of PACE, the state's drug assistance program for low-income seniors.

The bill also calls for the council to launch a hospital payment registry on its Web site.

The registry, updated annually, would include payments received by hospitals for the 150 most frequent admission diagnoses and most-frequently dispensed drugs.

Specifically, prices would include the amount an uninsured patient is charged for the procedures and drugs, the amount an individual enrolled in a high-deductible health insurance plan is required to pay, and the average payment the hospital has negotiated with third-party payers. The bill calls for a similar price registry for outpatient procedures.

The bill sets fines for pharmacies and medical centers that don't submit data.

Prices for medical procedures won't include physician charges, which can be a big chunk of a patient's overall bill.

Barbara Holland, deputy general counsel for the governor's office, acknowledged that shortfall, but said it was the best the state could do.

"We can get information from hospitals, but there is no mechanism in the Commonwealth to seize physician charge information," she said.

One local health reform executive said she had many questions about the proposal, but called it a good step toward giving people better information about the cost of health care services.

"This is a starting point. I would salute that," said Karen Wolk Feinstein, president of the Jewish Health Care Foundation and the Pittsburgh Regional Health Care Initiative, which works to stem costs through the elimination of medical errors.

"You will have naysayers, but you have to start somewhere," she said, adding that she was pleased that the registries would be coordinated by the cost containment council, which has issued some of the state's first and only public report cards on medical care, including landmark studies on hospital-acquired infections.

"They [the council] have the opportunity to connect their quality data" to the pricing data, Dr. Feinstein said. "That would be very positive. I would hate to look at price without quality."