Medical Care Costs Are Unbalanced

I had to spend some time in the hospital today waiting for someone else, and while sitting waiting I couldn’t help but wonder what the final costs were going to be.  The medical care system has become a big mystery.  In contrast to my normal tendency to be a careful shopper, weighing the price of any good, I find myself in the position of blindly paying whatever bill the hospital and my insurance company decide to send me once it all plays out.

This uncertainty would not be all that problematic if the prices for services and drugs were at least similar from provider to provider.  But they aren’t.  From The New York Times (click here to read the whole article):

This country has the most expensive medical system in the world, by a wide margin. Yet the hospitals making that happen — spending far more than others in this country and hospitals in other countries — are getting essentially zero return on their investment. More to the point, they’re getting essentially zero return on our investment: the additional money we spend on Medicare taxes as a result.

Hospitals, clinics, and certainly pharmacies set prices that vary wildly.  And this is not simply a matter of geography.  Call around to your local pharmacies to find out the actual prices of a given prescription medication.  You’ll be surprised at the disparity you’ll find even within your own community.

Also, as the author of the NYT article is careful to point out: Cost of living differences certainly account for some of the price differences, but the former don’t even come close to accounting for all of the latter.

The facts are simple: There is no obvious external justification for such wide price differences, and there is no substantial link between quality of care and price of care.  Surely our medical care system can serve us better than this.