US is the most expensive country for healthcare costs. While there are minor reasons like lifestyle, guns, drugs which make more people need medical treatment, the real reason is predatory pricing. Identical products and services are sold for vastly different prices based on the buyer's (or insurance provider's) capabilities. In-network and out-of-network costs can easily differ by 5000% or higher with sometimes zero transparency. So why doesn't US Congress pass a simple law that says prices of goods and services should be transparent and out-of-network prices and in-network prices cannot differ by more than 100%? Won't that bring fair market economics lowering healthcare prices while simultaneously retaining the benefits of capitalism? Link: https://tinyurl.com/y9g6mf5o
Many people love getting fucked in the ass by healthcare companies, cable companies, energy companies and all the other monopolistic entities. They think if they vote for a socialist system they might help the poor people or even worse the immigrants. So they vote against any candidate who tries.
Transparent pricing is a good idea. Price ceiling is not.
But transparency is pointless when prices can differ by as much as 50x. If cost of a blood sugar test can range from $5 to $500, what use is price transparency alone?
If you ask you get the transparent price of $500, if I ask I am given the price of $5. How does that help you?
It’s the entire supply chain that’s fucked. Sure they charge $500 for a bag of saline, $40 for a pill of ibuprofen, $10 for a Dixie cup, and $80 to hold your newborn. Similarly they charge the surgeon $450 for a scalpel that’s slightly modified, you can do the modification yourself with a $15 scalpel and 5 minuets. Then insurance only pays 10-20% of list prices. The problem is when they don’t extend those same negotiated rates to regular people. In terms of price transparency it would be great if along with the charge master they also would be required to publish city, county, state, and national averages pre and post negotiations for procedures. A nominal price list is worthless. This would allow realistic expectations and easy to find cheapest location and easy price comparisons to determine if a location is expensive or not.
Do you think it actually cost $25 to visit your doctor?
Well, I have HSA so I know it costs me $300 to see a doctor but I really don't know how much it actually costs. Sure the insurance company breaks it down for me, but I have absolutely no idea how much it costs my colleague who has a different plan. The reason is there isn't a single price at all! That's the whole problem.
Government must be out of health insurance business. They fucked a lot with Obamacare already. Socialist way we’d have to pay + 10-15% for insurance.
Actually this has nothing to do with insurance or politics of who pays for them. It's about the cost of medical services itself. What is needed is a fair market to begin with which does not exist in US.
Because volume discounts, economies of scale, and negotiating leverage. Why not mandate in-network prices have to be raised to out-of-network levels? I’m sure you’d see a lot more suppliers provide services. The reason is because the market is 100% better at determining prices than a bureaucrat.
Sure, raise in-network prices, but the key idea is to have a market! That can only happen when the price of a good is fixed or uniform. If the price itself isn't fixed you don't have a market at all. Take the airline seats as an example - airlines can have business class and economy class seats and charge widely different prices for them, but they cannot prohibit the business class passengers from buying economy class if they want. But medical industry gets away with exactly this!
Go back in time and elect someone other than Obama who created massive incentives for healthcare consolidation and approved every merger proposed if you want competition. Your analogy doesn’t make sense - you can buy whatever medical service you want.
I don’t get it either. I’m not from the US either and it’s hard to get used to the US healthcare system. It makes zero sense.
If both of us just get our blood sugar tested and I happen to have insurance while you don't, your charge could be 100 times what I pay. If Walmart tried to do that for a bag of cereal they get can get sued, but medical facilities can get away with it legally.
You don’t have insurance you pay way less. That’s why a lot of people use HSA.