The idea of shopping for health care is a joke. If you need care urgently or there’s only one health care provider near you able to treat your condition, you can’t shop for health care. And, even when you have all the choice of providers you could hope for and all the time in the world to choose one, you generally don’t know which way to turn. There are often multiple providers, and you have little control over the treatments you’ll receive. Yet, the amount you’re charged can vary widely, reports BenefitsPro.
in the US, government does not determine health care prices for working people and allows exorbitant prices, with no bearing on the quality of care delivered. For people in traditional Medicare, the government does determine the price of each service. But, in Medicare Advantage, insurers are allowed to pay providers what they please, even though the government pays insurers based on Medicare rates.
Working Americans and other Americans who do not have Medicare or Medicaid should not have to shop for health care. In every other wealthy nation, health care is guaranteed and the government determines the prices, ensuring they are fair. Here, health care prices keep going up; there’s no meaningful competition among health care providers.
More than two decades ago, Gerard Anderson, Uwe Reinhardt et al., wrote ‘It’s the Prices, Stupid,” explaining the key problem with our health care system. But, little has changed, since then. Health care prices are all over the map.
The latest findings reveal that negotiated prices for six inpatient procedures can be as much as 9.1 times higher in some places than in others. Even at the same hospital, different insurers arrive at very different prices for the same procedure. Cost and quality do not correlate among the best hospitals.
Wages in the US stagnate for low-income and working people as health care costs continue to rise. Urge your employers to band together to have the government negotiate health care prices and guarantee health care for all.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- 2025: Planning for health care costs in retirement
- Poll: Costs remain a major barrier to care
- 2025: Programs that lower your costs if you have Medicare
- People with Medicare spend twice as much on healthcare as other people
- Why does health care cost so much? It’s the prices
