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> “Some hospitals … don’t believe consumers would find [price transparency] useful” Is saying that consumers are too stupid to understand the benefits of price
by Day1 5y ago
> “Some hospitals … don’t believe consumers would find [price transparency] useful”
Is saying that consumers are too stupid to understand the benefits of price transparency an adequate defense?
- b9a2cab5 5y agoNo, the article says exactly why: > Texas-based Christus Health early this year said on its website it planned to defy the rules because its comprehensive list of prices “will only be useful for our competitors.” Because publishing prices leads to actual competition.
- mc32 5y agoPrice transparency in medical care should have been a thing since the 80s when we deregulated telecomms and aviation. There should be price transparency and WYSIWYG billing, no hidden fees, or bait and switch, etc. No $50 tylenols and such shenanigans.
- koolba 5y agoI’d take it a step further and mandate a single price for everybody. Let insurance cover whatever the actual is going to be for paying in cash and not some voodoo accounting that generates a cash price backwards from the maximum negotiated rates. Insurance should be to cover unforeseen events. Baking in the cost of trivial things like a “fee flu shot” just acts as a way to obscure the true costs.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoTotally agree. Charge the same price for everybody no matter how they are paying.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoWhat would be the difficult-to-foresee challenges this, for practitioners and consumers, would raise?
- arcticbull 5y agoLet's take it one step further and everyone pays for health insurance out of their taxes according to their means, and the state handles all the billing, negotiation and pricing on their end - and the individual never has to care who's paying and how much. Socialized medicine already covers 40% of Americans between Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. Time to get it to 100%. The Canada Health Act is a great model. The Feds mandate that the Provinces figure out how to provide everyone a minimum standard of care, and each Province administers a public health insurance program that covers everyone. This would map perfectly to the states.
- mc32 5y agoI'm not sure I would want to go there. "People of means" already pay greater taxes which support government programs. If you think they are not paying enough, raise their taxes, but avoid double taxation. In other words, I don't think just because I would pay $1000 for a broken arm means I would agree that Bezos should pay $100,000,000 for the same. It would make no sense. It would make sense to close his tax loopholes. Sure.
- arcticbull 5y agoSorry for the unintentionally charged and hence confusing language there. I just meant via progressive taxation. Something like the Ontario Health Premium [1] which ranges from $0 per year if your taxable income is $20,000 or less, to $900 per year if your taxable income is more than $200,600. I agree and also do not want what you outlined! :) I strongly suspect that a socialized medical program in the US would not actually cost individuals any more than they're paying now - it's just that the cost they're paying is hidden behind employer paid premiums. That's just a private tax. [1] https://www.ontario.ca/page/health-premium https://www.ontario.ca/page/health-premium
- technofiend 5y agoUnfortunately as one example Medicare Part D price negotiation has been blocked since 2003. When some drugs were moved to Part B, insurance companies were furious because it allowed price negotiation for those. This is from 2016, so nothing has changed AFAIK. https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20160919.056632/full/ https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20160919.... Despite this election season’s divisiveness, both major parties’ presidential candidates have embraced the idea of authorizing Medicare Part D to negotiate directly with drug companies to set prescription drug prices. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), which established Medicare Part D, included a ban on such negotiation. Apparently both sides of the aisle pander to voters with the idea they'll help with healthcare costs and then don't once safely elected to office.
- refurb 5y agoYour summary doesn’t make much sense. Part D plans are administered by private insurance, who do negotiate prices. Part B drugs aren’t negotiated even today. Government has a formula for what they will pay, but there is no negotiation.
- refurb 5y agoWhy mandate a single price? Don’t we want prices to be competitive? As a young doctor I may want to bill at a 10% discount?
- HarryHirsch 5y agoMedicine is very much standardized, so you want to bill the same per procedure, but for complicated cases you want to allow upcharges.
- refurb 5y agoSo a fresh out of residency eye surgeon should get paid the same as a 20 year old doctor who has done 1,000s of the procedures?
- HarryHirsch 5y agoThe patient should pay the same, no matter who does it. Compensation of healthcare staff is an internal matter and frankly not relevant to the patient. That's how it works in Germany.
- nradov 5y agoSo should every healthcare provider organization throughout the country be required to charge the same price for a given procedure? Many US doctors still run solo practices, so there is no real difference between the company and the "staff". It seems reasonable that doctors with more experience and better skills should charge higher fees.
- HarryHirsch 5y agoIt seems reasonable that doctors with more experience and better skills should charge higher fees. That's entirely your opinion. A more experienced doctor shouldn't have problems finding cases that require advanced expertise.
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- R0b0t1 5y agoPrice transparency is a thing. NY (and I think other states by now) have ruled that surprise billing was never enforceable.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoGiven “no hospitals have been penalized as of late December, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is responsible for enforcing the rules,” this comes close to dereliction of duty by CMMS. That said, that hospital’s spokesperson said they will be in compliance by the New Year, so maybe this is just a work in progress.
- tastyfreeze 5y agoThe price transparency rules became effective on January 1st 2021. A change like this will always take time for everybody to implement. But, I agree. If CMMS doesn't penalize non-compliance hospitals will drag their feet indefinitely.
- shmerl 5y agoIt's an euphemism for "we don't want to make it obvious how much we overcharge".
- technofiend 5y agoIt's disingenuous, patronizing and offensively cynical, but it's no defense. It reminds me of people naming bills the opposite of what they are meant to do. The "Patriot Act" was touted to among other things "defend freedom" and then enabled a surveillance state. That kind of thing. The hospitals will have to be sued into compliance by the Attorney General's office if it's important enough to Mr. Garland.
- Buttons840 5y agoWonder if individuals can sue once they get their bills, on the grounds that they didn't realize that would be the price, and this was caused by the hospital's failure to comply with the law.
- nradov 5y agoNo the federal law which requires price transparency didn't create any private right for individuals to sue on that basis. In principle that seems like a good idea but it would take a new law.
- throwoutway 5y agoHow so? If there is no price transparency, couldn’t they sue them for violation?
- technofiend 5y agoThat's too bad. I don't pretend to know anything about the law but it feels like this is one of those places where either thousands or tens of thousands of arbitration claims or a class action lawsuit would be effective.
- ibejoeb 5y agoWaiting for the "Freedom to Fly" act to drop any day now, which should prevent someone from flying without a pharma endorsement. It's like a perverse kind of poetry. --- People in here acting like it wouldn't be called that lol...