“Since 2000, hospital prices have grown faster than prices in any other sector of the economy,” Cooper added. “The average price of an inpatient admission is now nearly $25,000. We need to be doing more to preserve competition in U.S. hospital markets.”
apothegm•3mo ago
Because people going to the emergency room are going to price shop?
rawgabbit•3mo ago
Yes. Exactly, this study blames hospital consolidation for price increases.
It's Spiderman pointing at Spiderman. They're all guilty.
Healthcare is 17% of GDP. You literally can't do that without having a TON of people benefitting because if it were only a small number of people benefiting (e.g. "just doctors" or "just insurance companies") the politicians would have long since voted to throw them under the bus to reap the bajillion votes they'd get from everyone else.
jvanderbot•3mo ago
Why stop there? Misaligned incentives tied to a baby boom is at fault.
Lots of people aging into health care/ problems.
Rising demand + protectionism of med schools -> Higher wages and costs
Increased demand for care -> More nursing demand -> More student loans for nursing schools
More nurses making money and overworked -> More protectionism to save wages
Regulation to try to level costs and provide uniform care for "all" -> More paperwork -> more administrators -> slower care + costlier care
More costs -> More insurance premiums, more medicare/medicaid budget required
Consolidation -> higher profits + less overhead. ("one system")
Huge insurance companies, huge care providers, and gobs of nurses -> Voting sway
Voting sway -> Legislators try to work "within" the system
FireBeyond•3mo ago
Maybe they could lobby to rescind Certificates of Need, which are, at their most cynical, asking hospitals in the area if they'd be affected by having more competition in their area (ostensibly so they don't to shut down beds due to reduced revenue). I say cynical, but the original lobbyists for Certificates of Need were checks notes hospital owners...
toast0•3mo ago
Hospital admissions are a mix of ER referals and less urgent matters. There are a lot of hospital procedures where you can shop for price, (perceived) quality, or other factors.
Otoh, it's often very hard to price shop, because it's difficult (often nearly impossible) to get an estimate for medical care when insurance may be involved. If you need your car repaired, you can get estimates and in many jurisdictions the mechanic needs consent to go beyond the estimate. If you want a cosmetic procedure that's never covered by insurance, you cam get an estimate that will be accurate unless there's complications (and if they're likely, you may get contingent estimates for likely options).
If you need a covered medical procedure, good luck; chances are you won't know what it cost until 6-9 months after.
MandieD•3mo ago
Good Lord. My scheduled Cesarian section delivery in 2020 was a hair over 5,000 EUR, including three nights in a double room (extremely short in Germany for that procedure, but our house was closer to the maternity ward than the main public parking garage is), and that was all picked up by my private insurance. I don't know what the in-patient charges for my child were, because that was my husband's insurance, but I'm going to guess far less, since he didn't require any special handling, thank God.
In Germany, there is the GOÄ, which is a publicly-available list of procedures and what the public health insurance funds will pay doctors and hospitals for them. Private patients can be charged fixed multiples, but usually no more than about 3.5 times the "list" prices.
RGamma•3mo ago
GOÄ is applicable only to private insurance and out-of-pocket payers. Public insurance uses the EBM (less generous to doctors, hence why they like private patients and IGeL so much).
bentt•3mo ago
We just paid $18k out of pocket for outpatient (not overnight) surgery. $6k to the surgeon, $2.5k to anesthesiologist, the rest to… I dunno, the hospital.
rawgabbit•3mo ago
apothegm•3mo ago
rawgabbit•3mo ago
Meanwhile the American Hospital Association blames regulation. https://www.aha.org/topics/regulatory-relief
potato3732842•3mo ago
Healthcare is 17% of GDP. You literally can't do that without having a TON of people benefitting because if it were only a small number of people benefiting (e.g. "just doctors" or "just insurance companies") the politicians would have long since voted to throw them under the bus to reap the bajillion votes they'd get from everyone else.
jvanderbot•3mo ago
Lots of people aging into health care/ problems.
Rising demand + protectionism of med schools -> Higher wages and costs
Increased demand for care -> More nursing demand -> More student loans for nursing schools
More nurses making money and overworked -> More protectionism to save wages
Regulation to try to level costs and provide uniform care for "all" -> More paperwork -> more administrators -> slower care + costlier care
More costs -> More insurance premiums, more medicare/medicaid budget required
Consolidation -> higher profits + less overhead. ("one system")
Huge insurance companies, huge care providers, and gobs of nurses -> Voting sway
Voting sway -> Legislators try to work "within" the system
FireBeyond•3mo ago
toast0•3mo ago
Otoh, it's often very hard to price shop, because it's difficult (often nearly impossible) to get an estimate for medical care when insurance may be involved. If you need your car repaired, you can get estimates and in many jurisdictions the mechanic needs consent to go beyond the estimate. If you want a cosmetic procedure that's never covered by insurance, you cam get an estimate that will be accurate unless there's complications (and if they're likely, you may get contingent estimates for likely options).
If you need a covered medical procedure, good luck; chances are you won't know what it cost until 6-9 months after.
MandieD•3mo ago
In Germany, there is the GOÄ, which is a publicly-available list of procedures and what the public health insurance funds will pay doctors and hospitals for them. Private patients can be charged fixed multiples, but usually no more than about 3.5 times the "list" prices.
RGamma•3mo ago