Because a funeral is 1 service and something like a birth could be 100 different services with different experts and requirements that are impossible to predict beforehand..
In theory, the hospital should be able to provide a minimum price based on the standard order set for labor and delivery -- "If you have a natural birth in the hospital, and you spend 1 day in the room, 2 days in recovery, only use these drugs and receive these tests, your visit will cost $XX." But that isn't really helpful since most births will vary a substantial amount from the 'basic' plan. This gets back to why insurance exists in the first place, if the average price for 10 births is $10,000 -- that could be 10 births at $10k or 9 births at $1k and one at $91k or literally anywhere in between.
but that data could be really useful - the average cost is $x, the median is $y, and you could do standard deviations too. Or you could give even more detailed info
In my opinion, your question (and that of the author) are the wrong ones to ask. The right question to ask is: how come people have to pay for childbirth in a hospital in the US when it is free in all other first world countries (and many other countries as well)?
I agree with this, but the main point that stuck for me was: how can it possibly be argued that what the U.S. has is a free market, if it's unusual to even seek prices? Forcing providers to reveal their prices beforehand doesn't solve whatever issue brought us here in the first place.
the real answer is: they will charge as much as your insurance will accept. Then your insurance will "negotiate" a lower amount based on their leverage, data and other closely guarded policies.
My company has developed several tools to answer these kinds of questions. One of which is publicly available and done for a non-profit: http://guroo.com, which lacks provider specific detail, but has averages for many different types of services by geographic area. It is a neat tool, that is a step in the right direction, but is unfortunately not very actionable. The data is based on 40 million insured individuals.
Another tool has provider specific detail, but is only available to the members of select insurance companies. It uses data specific to that company's historic provider data and negotiated rates.
More employers are moving to high deductible health plans with health savings accounts and are looking for insurance companies to provide more tools to help guide members choices. Giving members increased incentives to make good healthcare decisions doesn't do any good unless the members have the tools needed to make informed decisions.
As a Canadian this is something that would have never crossed my mind. I just go to the hospital/doctor without any thought of how much it's going to cost me. I suppose this is why "home birth" became a thing.
Can't find out medical prices? But conservatives tell us again and again that we have by far the best medical delivery system in the world. I guess the conclusion is that medical corporations (which is what hospitals are these days) work better when they don't have to reveal what they are charging.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 41.3 ms ] threadAnother tool has provider specific detail, but is only available to the members of select insurance companies. It uses data specific to that company's historic provider data and negotiated rates.
More employers are moving to high deductible health plans with health savings accounts and are looking for insurance companies to provide more tools to help guide members choices. Giving members increased incentives to make good healthcare decisions doesn't do any good unless the members have the tools needed to make informed decisions.