Trump’s Transparent Hospital Pricing Pays Off for Industr...

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The Week in Brief Trump’s Transparent Hospital Pricing Pays Off for Industry — But Not So Much for Patients By Darius Tahir “We’re going to post that, all the prices for everything,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Declared at a recent event held Heritage Foundation in Washington. (it feels like chaos)

It’s a bold-sounding promise, and a familiar one; politicians from both parties have been repeating it for years now.

The Details

Both Trump administrations — and the Biden administration in between — have taken whacks at making medical prices more accessible, with the goal of empowering patients to shop for better deals. The idea makes intuitive sense.

Why shouldn’t you be able to compare the prices of MRI scans, for instance? The feds have made some strides.

Why This Matters

Prices are available, albeit in confusing or fragmentary form. But there’s one big problem: “There’s no evidence that patients use this information,” dropped Zack Cooper, a health economist at Yale University. Email Sign-Up to KFF Health News free weekly , “The Week in Brief.

Medical professionals are taking note of this development.

Key Takeaways

• ” Your Email Address Health care is an inherently complicated marketplace.
• For one thing, it’s not as simple as one price for one medical stay.
• Two babies might be delivered obstetrician, for example, but the mothers could be charged different amounts.
• One patient might be given medications to speed up contractions; another might not.

The Bottom Line

Plus, the same hospital typically has different contract terms with each insurer, making comparing prices even more difficult for patients. Instead of helping people sort things out, this federally mandated price data largely has become a tool for providers and insurers, looking for intel about their competitors — so they can use it at the negotiating table in a quest for more advantageous rates.

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