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One of the busiest emergency rooms on the west coast is Salem, OR. It has a population of around 150k, but is the only major hospital between Eugene, and Portl
by briffle 5y ago
One of the busiest emergency rooms on the west coast is Salem, OR. It has a population of around 150k, but is the only major hospital between Eugene, and Portland (Portland has several hospitals) It has more than 110,000 visits a year.
Last year, Blue Cross threatened to remove it from its network, because its pricing is so high compared to other areas that have actual competition. But since they are the only game in town, they set the price.
Not sure what came out of that, but their list prices sure didn't go down. Must have cut them a special deal to keep them.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoCost controls imposed by the government will be required at some point.
- handrous 5y agoI'm not aware of a single example of an OECD state (the USA aside, obviously) that doesn't apply significant price controls on healthcare, either explicitly, or by imposing a state-controlled monopsony. Across all the various approaches to healthcare systems in the developed world, that seems to be the single most consistently-adopted measure for keeping healthcare costs from going crazy, as far as I can tell.