Thanks, the notion of higher prices is really the dogma now. Price gouging and expanded residencies are linked in many ways.
U.S.
Why Americans Spend So Much on Health Care—In 12 Charts
Prices are hidden behind insurance deals, hospital consolidation pushes up costs and the health sector is a growing power in the economy
STUART BRIERS
By
Joseph Walker
| Graphics by Angela Calderon
July 31, 2018 10:27 a.m. ET
The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation. It will soon spend close to 20% of its GDP on health—significantly more than the percentage spent by major Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations.
What is driving costs so high? As this series of charts shows, Americans
aren’t buying more health care overall than other countries. But what they are buying is increasingly expensive. Among the reasons is the troubling fact that few people in health care, from consumers to doctors to hospitals to insurers, know the true cost of what they are buying and selling.
Providers, manufacturers and middlemen operate in an opaque market that can mask their role and their cut of the revenue. Mergers give some players more heft to enlarge their piece of the pie.
Consumers, meanwhile, buoyed by insurance and tax breaks, have little idea how much they are really spending and little incentive to know underlying costs.
Note: Average is of 15 OECD nations with the largest per capita GDP for which data were available in all years.
Source: OECD
A big part of the problem in analyzing health spending is the opacity of the industry.
The bulk of
consumers’ health spending now goes to paying for health insurance, a shift from when patients paid directly for health services. Since insurers negotiate prices with providers, it is hard for individuals to judge health costs and make more informed choices.
Hospitals are becoming more consolidated and are using their market clout to negotiate higher prices from insurers.
