Healthcare Cost Control

LaVonne Neff has a helpful approach to keeping healthcare costs down.

Our current health-care system resembles free enterprise like a mugging resembles a trip to the mall. When we go to the doctor, the pharmacist, or the hospital, it's "your money or your life." We consumers usually have no idea how much any health-care service or product will cost until the bill arrives--we only know that we need help, and so we pay whatever is asked. Comparison shopping, an essential feature of budget management, is impossible.

So what if we figured out a way to make comparison shopping not only possible, but easy?

What if doctors' offices were required to post a list of their most common procedures, with prices for each?

Here's my response, which I posted to her site, Lively Dust:

LaVonne,

I like this idea a lot, though I'm not sure it goes far enough. Yes, doctors and other medical people ought to post their prices, but what is the incentive for users of their services to care, if the insurance company is just picking up the tab? Insurers do have the "reasonable and customary" limits, but these usually don't directly affect consumers.

I'd like to see medical savings accounts as part of your solution. That way, users have a direct incentive to keep their costs down, because what they don't spend, they keep.

Personally, I also think insurance needs to be de-tethered from employment to help it become more of a consumer good, subject more to the market.

Another thing: As physicians post their prices, consumers also need to be able to see their quality: satisfaction ratings, death rates for certain procedures (!), complaints, etc. Seems that with the Internet we should have more of this kind of info than we do.

Thanks for getting the discussion started.

Stan