That is the mess that the ACA was supposed to fix. Hospitals will still be billing at outrageous rates.
With health care you really can’t comparison shop when you have a medical emergency. They can charge you any amount for any procedure.
“That is the mess that the ACA was supposed to fix. Hospitals will still be billing at outrageous rates.”
What is happening is that competition between hospitals has diminished, as smaller hospitals are being consumed by larger hospitals and hospital corporations. Further, these large hospital systems are buying up the private practices around them - thus taking any competition from independent physician groups out of the equation.
They are, and will continue to cut ‘costs’ anywhere they can, while maintaining profit margins and administration salaries. This is a reality that will ultimately hurt patients. And, it’s not ‘competition’ as we generally envision it in our marketplace. Hospitals get paid at a higher rate than private physician groups and facilities can for the same tests. This was stipulated federally in the context of Medicare payments - and has been adopted by private insurers as well. So at baseline there isn’t fair competition.
We aren’t saving money, we are shifting payments to administrators and a growing bureaucracy, as always happens when government gets involved. As a consequence, patients as well as the caregivers in the trenches are getting the short end of the stick. Great plan..