{"id":1136,"date":"2019-11-19T20:18:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T03:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1136"},"modified":"2019-11-19T20:18:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T03:18:34","slug":"health-care-cost-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1136","title":{"rendered":"Health Care Cost Transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Getting the power of the marketplace to have some effect on\nhealth care costs has been the holy grail for years. The Trump administration\njust announced a major move. Let\u2019s look at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an announcement Friday, while many were watching\nimpeachment hearings, Trump officials described new rules they hope will\nimprove transparency in health costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One rule will require health insurance plans to provide \u201ccost-sharing\ninformation, including an estimate of their cost-sharing liability for all\ncovered healthcare items and services, through an online tool\u201d (HHS.gov). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, insurers will be required to: \u201cDisclose on a\npublic website their negotiated rates for in-network providers and allowed\namounts paid for out-of-network providers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you fallen\nasleep? I hope not because we haven\u2019t come to the good part yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposed rule\nwill also require hospitals \u201cto\nprovide patients with clear, accessible information about their “standard\ncharges” for the items and services they provide\u201d (HHS.gov).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, insurance companies will let us know how much they expect\nwe will have to pay should we have to file a claim, and also how much they will\nbe paying the hospitals and doctors. And hospitals will broadcast their charges.\nThis is a big deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or is it? It\u2019s been done in some states already. The longest\nrunning experiment on this is in New Hampshire where they established a cost\ncomparison website in 2007. Over a five-year study period MRI costs decreased\n1-2%. The overall savings for all outpatient radiology costs for people who\nused the tool was 3%. Not really big apples, I\u2019ll agree. Especially if you\nrealize imaging costs in the US are about twice what they are in other\ndeveloped countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this modest success hasn\u2019t stopped other states from\nlaunching their own website comparison tools. Our neighbors Washington and\nOregon have theirs running, as well as half a dozen others. Maybe the states\nthat have chosen to experiment can find better solutions. I really don\u2019t see Idaho\ninvesting in this soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why hasn\u2019t the all-powerful marketplace had more of an effect\nratcheting down the cost of healthcare? Before we look in the mirror, let\u2019s see\nwho else we can blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ask Bernie Sanders or any other Democratic\npresidential candidate that raised their hand, the blame would go squarely on\nthe health insurance industry and the profit driven Medical Industrial Complex.\n\u201cLet\u2019s eliminate all that\u201d to quote Kamala Harris. Maybe that gets your base\nfired up, but it skips over the fact that every developed country with\nuniversal coverage has some form of private insurance. Israel and the\nNetherlands require insurance be purchased. Many countries require private insurance\nto supplement public health insurance. Others make it optional. None outlaw it.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about we blame the lawyers? Sorry, it is a cost, but a\nsmall one. Medical malpractice may be a boogey man for nervous doctors and an\neasy target for politicians, but it represents less than 3% of all health care\ncosts, even if you factor in defensive medicine. And defensive medicine costs\n4X what the actual premiums and settlements run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should we blame the defensive doctors, or at least the highly\npaid ones? It is true, doctors in the United States are paid more than doctors\naround the world. In fact, it\u2019s about twice as much. And we have an abundance\nof specialists here in the US who tend to be higher earners. But doctors\u2019\nincome comprises a little less than 10% of the national total health care costs.\nCutting their pay in half would save us some. I\u2019d rather focus on getting\nbetter results out of them, er, I mean us, since once again medical mistakes\nhave been found to be the third leading cause of death according to a Johns\nHopkins study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US Medical Industrial Complex is huge and to quote our President\n\u201ccomplicated\u201d. We are going to have to do a lot of things to turn this ship\naround. Every little bit will help. Transparency will help. Who knows what we\nmight see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting the power of the marketplace to have some effect on health care costs has been the holy grail for years. The Trump administration just announced a major move. Let\u2019s look at it. In an announcement Friday, while many were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}