BDBoop
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Why do Hospitals Charge $4,423 for $250 CT Scans? Blame Arizona Republicans - Forbes
In Arizona, a state senator named Nancy Barto (R.), who chairs the senates Health Care and Medical Liability Reform Committee, sponsored a bill, SB 1384, targeted directly at this problem. The bill would require health care facilities to make available to the public on request in a single document the direct pay price for at least the fifty most used diagnosis-related group codes and at least the fifty most used outpatient service codes for the facility. Doctors would be similarly required to publish the direct-pay prices for their 25 most common services.
The idea is that patients who have health savings accounts need to know what various doctors and hospitals charge for their services, so that they can shop for value when they need care.
Sen. Bartos bill passed the Arizona Senate, but it died in March in the states House of Representatives, where Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee refused to send the bill to the full House for a vote. (Republicans control both houses of the Arizona state legislature, along with the governorship.)
Do we want free market health care? Sen. Barto asked in a recent blog post. Then why have common sense reforms that will produce one been opposed, defeated and/or vetoed at the legislature for the last 2 yearseven though we have a Republican Governor and Republican supermajority?
Its a good question. The short answer, she writes, is swarms of lobbyists. The longer answer is legislators succumbing to lobbyists on issues that should be rather plain.
Price transparency seems like the kind of thing that everyone should be able to rally around. But youd be wrong. Pretty much everyone in the health-care worldother than the patienthas an interest in keeping prices opaque.