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Obama administration promises medical pricing transparency (but will he deliver?)
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Dänk 42Ø
May 8, 2013, 1:41:41 AM5/8/13
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Obama administration promises medical pricing transparency
By Dänk 42Ø
07 May 2013
The Department of Health and Human Services is promoting a new regulation
that would require hospitals to submit their secret "chargemaster" lists;
not a full release but just prices they charge for the 100 most common
inpatient treatments.
The prices on the chargemaster list have no basis in reality, and are
NEVER paid except by uninsured patients. Private insurance companies
know what other hospitals charge for some operation, and will refuse to
allow their clients to use hospitals that charge more.
Government-run Medicare sets its own reimbursement rates, and hospitals
take it or leave it (there is no requirement for doctors and hospitals to
accept Medicare patients). The Medicare reimbursement fee has become the
closest thing to a market price, since hospitals would not accept it if
they were operating at a loss.
Of course, PRIVATE hospitals and doctors have a right to charge any
prices they want. But seems to be the ONLY industry in America in which
no price competition exists because the prices are kept secret until
AFTER the product is purchased!
The uninsured person can't shop around for the best price (because the
prices are secret), then gets stuck with a bankrupting $100k bill for a
procedure that cost at most $1000 in physician salary and other
resources, with perhaps an extra $500 tacked on to cover malpractice
insurance and profit. Again, hospitals have a right to charge whatever
they want, but their legal ability to keep their prices secret has
corrupted the market.
Private insurance companies are not too keen on revealing the negotiated
semi-market prices they pay hospitals, preferring to keep their customers
as ignorant as possible about how much of their premium money is profit.
And this would okay IF the medical insurance industry operated on free
market principles (most Americans have little or no choice in their
plans).
The result has been a total corruption of what once a true free-market
industry, causing medical prices to spiral out of control. Ironically,
it is government intervention that is causing most of the problem. The
one exception is the government's failure to enforce the rules of basic
free market capitalism, by allowing hospitals to get away with the
deceptive, anticompetitive and criminal practice of secret pricing.
The new HHS rule is suspect, a typical 20,000-page federal regulation
that spends trillions of dollars creating new government agencies (with
highly paid unionized staff) called "health care data pricing centers,"
which are supposed to accomplish what the Internet could accomplish for
free with a short new law requiring hospitals to disclose their prices.
And the regulation doesn't go far enough, exempting all but a hundred of
the most popular medical procedures.
What I'm seeing with this regulation is what will eventually become
government-imposed price controls on medical services. The inevitable
consequence will be a chronic shortage of those services. More
government regulation can only makes things worse, leading to demand to
more government regulation until the whole thing implodes in glorious
Soviet fashion. And all that was ever needed was just the most basic
capitalist competition.
In contrast, consider Mexico's medical system. Most Mexicans have no
medical insurance and pay for procedures and drugs out of their own
pockets. Prices are set by the FREE MARKET, which is why that country's
medical procedures cost a fraction of the prices on the American side of
the border. Quality varies widely, and word of mouth recommendations are
imperative in a country in which medical degrees and licenses are as
worthless as any other government document that can be purchased from
corrupt officials for the right price. Still, a procedure performed by a
reputable doctor can cost one-quarter to one-tenth the U.S. price. And
I've gone to Mexican doctors before and they never had any problem
telling me the price UP FRONT.
http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/an-end-to-medical-billing-secrecy/?
hpt=hp_t2
By Dänk 42Ø
07 May 2013
The Department of Health and Human Services is promoting a new regulation
that would require hospitals to submit their secret "chargemaster" lists;
not a full release but just prices they charge for the 100 most common
inpatient treatments.
The prices on the chargemaster list have no basis in reality, and are
NEVER paid except by uninsured patients. Private insurance companies
know what other hospitals charge for some operation, and will refuse to
allow their clients to use hospitals that charge more.
Government-run Medicare sets its own reimbursement rates, and hospitals
take it or leave it (there is no requirement for doctors and hospitals to
accept Medicare patients). The Medicare reimbursement fee has become the
closest thing to a market price, since hospitals would not accept it if
they were operating at a loss.
Of course, PRIVATE hospitals and doctors have a right to charge any
prices they want. But seems to be the ONLY industry in America in which
no price competition exists because the prices are kept secret until
AFTER the product is purchased!
The uninsured person can't shop around for the best price (because the
prices are secret), then gets stuck with a bankrupting $100k bill for a
procedure that cost at most $1000 in physician salary and other
resources, with perhaps an extra $500 tacked on to cover malpractice
insurance and profit. Again, hospitals have a right to charge whatever
they want, but their legal ability to keep their prices secret has
corrupted the market.
Private insurance companies are not too keen on revealing the negotiated
semi-market prices they pay hospitals, preferring to keep their customers
as ignorant as possible about how much of their premium money is profit.
And this would okay IF the medical insurance industry operated on free
market principles (most Americans have little or no choice in their
plans).
The result has been a total corruption of what once a true free-market
industry, causing medical prices to spiral out of control. Ironically,
it is government intervention that is causing most of the problem. The
one exception is the government's failure to enforce the rules of basic
free market capitalism, by allowing hospitals to get away with the
deceptive, anticompetitive and criminal practice of secret pricing.
The new HHS rule is suspect, a typical 20,000-page federal regulation
that spends trillions of dollars creating new government agencies (with
highly paid unionized staff) called "health care data pricing centers,"
which are supposed to accomplish what the Internet could accomplish for
free with a short new law requiring hospitals to disclose their prices.
And the regulation doesn't go far enough, exempting all but a hundred of
the most popular medical procedures.
What I'm seeing with this regulation is what will eventually become
government-imposed price controls on medical services. The inevitable
consequence will be a chronic shortage of those services. More
government regulation can only makes things worse, leading to demand to
more government regulation until the whole thing implodes in glorious
Soviet fashion. And all that was ever needed was just the most basic
capitalist competition.
In contrast, consider Mexico's medical system. Most Mexicans have no
medical insurance and pay for procedures and drugs out of their own
pockets. Prices are set by the FREE MARKET, which is why that country's
medical procedures cost a fraction of the prices on the American side of
the border. Quality varies widely, and word of mouth recommendations are
imperative in a country in which medical degrees and licenses are as
worthless as any other government document that can be purchased from
corrupt officials for the right price. Still, a procedure performed by a
reputable doctor can cost one-quarter to one-tenth the U.S. price. And
I've gone to Mexican doctors before and they never had any problem
telling me the price UP FRONT.
http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/an-end-to-medical-billing-secrecy/?
hpt=hp_t2
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