How to curb health care costs
Hospitals charge commercial payers far more than is needed to cover their expenses, with people who pay insurance premiums ultimately paying the price.
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Did You Know?
The U.S. spends twice as much per person for health care as other wealthy countries.
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Why Young Invincibles Should Sign up for Health Insurance
As health insurance enrollment required by the Affordable Care Act begins in earnest, I’ve seen plenty of press coverage questioning if young people will buy insurance as the Obama administration hopes, or if “young invincibles” will take their chances and go without. Most of the media coverage centers on how the participation of young people is essential for the financial longevity of our health care system. I think there’s another, stronger reason why young invincibles should get health insurance: their own financial well-being.
The High Cost of Emergency Room Care
With the re-launch of the federal healthcare.gov website, millions of Americans are now able to sign up for health insurance required under the Affordable Care Act. The federal website and its state-run counterparts are making it easier for people to search for health insurance and subsidies are making insurance premiums more affordable. However, increasing access to health insurance—and therefore health care—addresses only part of the problem with our health care system. A huge challenge still to be tackled is the high and rising cost of care, most recently documented by the New York Times.
New Data on Variation in Hospital Charges
New data released by Medicare reveal immense variation in the amount charged by hospitals for treatment of the 100 most common inpatient stays. Information from more than 3,000 hospitals around the country shows that, for the same procedure, charges vary as much as 42-fold—from $5,300 to $223,000 for joint replacement. The variation in charges is greater than the variation we observed in our recent analysis of charges by California hospitals for the 12 most common surgeries.
Reducing Costs and Improving Patient Health: A Success Story
The Washington Post recently offered a profile of the success of Health Quality Partners, a Pennsylvania-based organization that has demonstrated how focusing additional medical resources on particularly vulnerable Medicare patients can reduce costs and improve patient health.
What the High Cost of Health Care Means for My Family
In general, I know that health care is expensive, but I don’t usually think about what that means for my family. That changed this week with the annual open enrollment period for my health insurance plan.
Issue specialist
Ridlington
Elizabeth
Ridlington
Associate Director and Senior Policy Analyst, Frontier Group