America's health bill will surpass $7.7 trillion by 2032. That's equivalent to one in every five dollars flowing through the economy.
To address this crisis, we must make health care work like other sectors of our economy, rather than the bloated, over-regulated mess it is today. And that will require giving patients more control over their healthcare dollars. Because massive government programs like Medicare reimburse providers so little, hospitals and doctors charge private insurers higher rates to make up the difference.
Private health plans pay hospitals 254% of what Medicare would have paid, on average. Private insurers pass their higher costs onto patients in the form of soaring premiums, deductibles, and restrictions on what's covered. Obamacare's many mandates have encouraged consolidation throughout the healthcare marketplace.
Hospitals are getting bigger, too, in order to gain negotiating leverage with insurers. The 10 biggest U.S.
healthcare systems now manage more than 1,200 hospitals, or about 20% of our country's total. All that consolidation reduces competition and nudges costs higher. To top it all off, nobody knows exactly how much anything costs until they get hit with the bill.
As of February 2023, three-quarters of hospitals still failed to publish their prices, despite federal rules requiring them to do so. It's time to end this madness. The first move should be to create a regulatory environment that incentivizes providers to disclose cash prices in a cl.
