New data released from the government this month reveal the costs of care vary wildly from hospital to hospital. For example, the same procedure can cost $12,000 or $37,000 in Arkansas; $35,000 or about $100,000 in different California hospitals; and $14,000 or $32,000 in Virginia.
Dr. Gerard Anderson heads the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management. He says hospitals have marked up the charges so much over the past 30 years that they no longer have any ties to actual costs.
"It's not the input prices. It's not the cost of nurses and labor and those kinds of things. It is just what they choose to charge," said Anderson.
Michelle Katz is a nurse and health care consultant. She says those pricing practices are unfair.
"There needs to be some sort of regulation, some sort of transparency, where if I go to the hospital I know I'm not going to go into debt because I went into the hospital," said Katz.
Millions of Americans like Dana are hoping when a key part of the Obama Administration's health care reform initiative goes into effect next year, it will fix these sky-rocketing costs. The Affordable Care Act will give tens of millions of Americans new access to health care services. But Dr. Anderson says the wild and inconsistent charges won't be going down.
"It's not bringing them back to a normal, reasonable amount. It's just constraining the rate of increase," he said.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25