I have negotiated optimally priced ambulance transport at a minor delay to the third-closest hospital, but it's ok, since I have perfect foresight into the severity of my heart attack once it strikes and can properly foresee that it requires a stent and only two bypasses.
On the way to the hospital, I dynamically evaluate the profiles of the three heart surgeons available to my insurance, evaluating copays.
I am underway and halfway to the hospital. Oh my! The primary negotiations with the surgical staff and transport cost went well, but my negotiations with the on-staff anaestheiologists is being blocked with obfuscated billing and a 404 from their billing providers as to whom supports my insurance.
Oh, do you question if I am getting the full supply of oxygen to perform these critical decisions while intubated and suffering a heart attack? Well it's obviously easy to navigate these various web portals and handy dandy iPhone apps.
I'm sure these temporary pricing portal errors will resolve themselves by the time I reach the hospital and can renegotiate ambulance transport to an alternative hospital.
You are worried about a sudden and unpredictable event which is right to be concerned about.
I’m more concerned about routine, predictable care (even expensive but schedule-able surgeries like knee replacements) that are gouging our entire system. We need drastic decrease in costs in this area which I believe is achievable in part through price transparency and “shopping around”. Indeed, the medical tourism industry, where Americans fly to foreign countries for medical and dental procedures, exists for this exact reason.
Medicine is not entirely the same as other markets but pretending it is somehow entirely disconnected from basic economics is how we got into this mess in the first place.
These are not mutually exclusive scenarios. Even if you have universal healthcare it doesn’t mean necessarily that the hospitals are government run as well.
Who cares about ideology here. There’s a lot of evidence this lowers the cost of elective surgeries. This is great for those with and without insurance and might drive the price down. This ruling in now way hurts the public option unless you see this as a zero sum game where any improvement to the health care system without an overhaul is bad politically. I’m in favor of the public option and this ruling.
Trauma? Death or multiple orthopedic and cardiothoracic/neural surgeries.
Heart attack? Death or multiple specialist visits, possibly surgical intervention.
Stroke? Same thing.
Respiratory failure, punctured/collapsed lung, deep vein thrombosis, etc.? Same thing.
Sure, the person who comes to the ER for a cold has the time to figure out which ER to go to, buy a large majority of major (read: expensive) hospital visits are time critical life or death. Delaying treatment of a heart attack or stroke massively decreases survival rates and those are two of the most common causes of death in the US already.
They are the most expensive in the US system, possibly because they can be. US hospitals load costs artificially where they can (e.g. on the uninsured, because the insurance companies actually have bargaining power and wouldn't just pay any price).
Outside the US, many of these aren't the most expensive ones. Furthermore, "multiple surgeries" and "multiple specialist visits" might be caused by an emergency, but are very rarely scheduled as an emergency - the first one, maybe; the rest usually have 48 hours to 14 days in between (which often cannot be shortened for medical reasons even if you wanted). The patient might not be able to comparison shop between while recovering, but their spouse/kids/parents likely could. Also, many of those emergencies cause weeks or months of hospitalization - but often moving to another hospital is medically reasonable, and if it cuts the cost of care down 50%, many people will prefer it over e.g. bankruptcy.
The mere possibility that people will shop around tends to make a market much more fair.
And additionally, on average emergency care, even if more expensive, is small in the grand scheme of things. Continuous treatments and medications, and pre-planned procedures are the majority of the overall costs.
Your last sentence. Did you read the article and notice who put this into play? It wasn’t anyone on the left. Your comment is silly and diminishes the rest of what you said. Grow up
I interpreted OP as a criticism of the move, implying that it isn't enough to drive down healthcare cost in the US. Transparent pricing is something libertarians support, I would've thought.
Finally, this is the first step in fixing the US medical system, which seems to be designed to bring the most profits to the hospitals and insurance companies, at the expense of everyone else.
Sure, there will be hurdles along the way, but this is a good direction overall.
Hospitals routinely pretend that a procedure is 10x more than e.g. they accept from (certain) insurance companies for the same work. Then, when they don't get it, they report the difference as a loss against profits.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 41.2 ms ] threadI have negotiated optimally priced ambulance transport at a minor delay to the third-closest hospital, but it's ok, since I have perfect foresight into the severity of my heart attack once it strikes and can properly foresee that it requires a stent and only two bypasses.
On the way to the hospital, I dynamically evaluate the profiles of the three heart surgeons available to my insurance, evaluating copays.
I am underway and halfway to the hospital. Oh my! The primary negotiations with the surgical staff and transport cost went well, but my negotiations with the on-staff anaestheiologists is being blocked with obfuscated billing and a 404 from their billing providers as to whom supports my insurance.
Oh, do you question if I am getting the full supply of oxygen to perform these critical decisions while intubated and suffering a heart attack? Well it's obviously easy to navigate these various web portals and handy dandy iPhone apps.
I'm sure these temporary pricing portal errors will resolve themselves by the time I reach the hospital and can renegotiate ambulance transport to an alternative hospital.
... what a libertarian utopia we live in.
I’m more concerned about routine, predictable care (even expensive but schedule-able surgeries like knee replacements) that are gouging our entire system. We need drastic decrease in costs in this area which I believe is achievable in part through price transparency and “shopping around”. Indeed, the medical tourism industry, where Americans fly to foreign countries for medical and dental procedures, exists for this exact reason.
Medicine is not entirely the same as other markets but pretending it is somehow entirely disconnected from basic economics is how we got into this mess in the first place.
Who cares about ideology here. There’s a lot of evidence this lowers the cost of elective surgeries. This is great for those with and without insurance and might drive the price down. This ruling in now way hurts the public option unless you see this as a zero sum game where any improvement to the health care system without an overhaul is bad politically. I’m in favor of the public option and this ruling.
Trauma? Death or multiple orthopedic and cardiothoracic/neural surgeries.
Heart attack? Death or multiple specialist visits, possibly surgical intervention.
Stroke? Same thing.
Respiratory failure, punctured/collapsed lung, deep vein thrombosis, etc.? Same thing.
Sure, the person who comes to the ER for a cold has the time to figure out which ER to go to, buy a large majority of major (read: expensive) hospital visits are time critical life or death. Delaying treatment of a heart attack or stroke massively decreases survival rates and those are two of the most common causes of death in the US already.
Outside the US, many of these aren't the most expensive ones. Furthermore, "multiple surgeries" and "multiple specialist visits" might be caused by an emergency, but are very rarely scheduled as an emergency - the first one, maybe; the rest usually have 48 hours to 14 days in between (which often cannot be shortened for medical reasons even if you wanted). The patient might not be able to comparison shop between while recovering, but their spouse/kids/parents likely could. Also, many of those emergencies cause weeks or months of hospitalization - but often moving to another hospital is medically reasonable, and if it cuts the cost of care down 50%, many people will prefer it over e.g. bankruptcy.
The mere possibility that people will shop around tends to make a market much more fair.
And additionally, on average emergency care, even if more expensive, is small in the grand scheme of things. Continuous treatments and medications, and pre-planned procedures are the majority of the overall costs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6suD_ine_Ho
Sure, there will be hurdles along the way, but this is a good direction overall.