Date: 2024-09-27 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00004861
Health
High prices in the USA
The Pricing Of U.S. Hospital Services: Chaos Behind A Veil Of Secrecy ... An economist’s insights into what causes the variation in pricing, and what to do about it.
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
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The Pricing Of U.S. Hospital Services: Chaos Behind A Veil Of Secrecy ...
An economist’s insights into what causes the variation in pricing, and what to do about it.
by Uwe E. Reinhardt
ABSTRACT: Although Americans and foreigners alike tend to think of the U.S. health care system as being a “market-driven” system, the prices actually paid for health care goods and services in that system have remained remarkably opaque. This paper describes how U.S. hospitals now price their services to the various third-party payers and self-paying patients, and how that system would have to be changed to accommodate the increasingly popular concept of “consumer-directed health care.” [Health Affairs 25, no. 1 (2006): 57–69]