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Mystfyre t1_j0zc12m wrote

Reply to comment by S-Kunst in U.S. hospitals are required to publish their prices for medical procedures now, so my friends and I collected around 2 million prices from 33 hospitals in Maryland and created a search engine where anyone can see how much they may be charged. Let me know what you think! (x-posted from r/Maryland) by Dr_Midnight

For healthcare, there's a whole host of reasons. But a big one is price transparency. It is nigh impossible to shop around for healthcare, because even hospitals/clinics and your insurance aren't sure how much you'll be charged out of pocket until they send it through billing. Imagine a world where you don't discover the price of anything until after you buy it. That's US healthcare. Markets can't function without prices.

That is what this publish requirement is meant to fix, but I don't think it will be much help. Contracts change constantly and a lot of the data is wrong. It doesn't account for deductibles or maximum coverage or if your insurance decides to not cover something just because.

Maryland is unique in that regulated hospitals have to charge the same amount for the same service, and revenue is capped. Hospitals ostensibly can't make more money by pumping up volumes. But that is just the facility fee, professional fees (the doctors) still function under fee-for-service and can vary greatly. Clinics are unaffected as well.

If it takes an army of professionals to vaguely understand the system, what hope is there for any particular individual?

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Sarcastic_Source t1_j10fp1x wrote

All of this is a bunch of jibberish, the real answer is that healthcare isn’t and shouldn’t be a “market commodity” but a fundamental human right guaranteed to all.

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