What if all US health care costs were transparent? | Jeanne Pinder

Summary

In this insightful talk, the speaker shares their personal experience with the opaque and inflated costs of healthcare, revealing shocking discrepancies in pricing across cities and procedures. They launched a crowdsourced initiative to provide transparency in healthcare costs, helping individuals save thousands by accessing accurate pricing data. The speaker advocates for public price transparency as a potential solution to reduce financial burdens on patients and improve the healthcare system. While acknowledging the complexity of the issue, they call for systemic change, urging people to demand upfront price information to make more informed healthcare decisions.

Takeaways

• 😀 The healthcare system is marked by extreme pricing opacity, making it impossible for consumers to know the cost of procedures beforehand.
• 😀 The speaker's personal experience with a $1,419 charge for a generic anti-nausea drug highlights the absurdity of healthcare pricing.
• 😀 Many healthcare providers are unwilling or unable to disclose pricing, leading to a lack of consumer control and awareness.
• 😀 Price variations for similar procedures are massive depending on location; for example, an echocardiogram costs $200 in Brooklyn but $2,150 in Manhattan.
• 😀 Crowdsourcing data on healthcare prices from real patients is an effective way to uncover pricing discrepancies and save people money.
• 😀 A tool created by the speaker allows users to search for healthcare pricing, similar to how people compare prices for flights or hotels online.
• 😀 In New Orleans, a woman saved nearly $4,000 using the price data, and others have saved thousands by paying cash rather than going through insurance.
• 😀 A consumer protection bill in Louisiana passed after the speaker’s initiative highlighted the widespread issue of healthcare pricing.
• 😀 The speaker argues that public price transparency could significantly reduce healthcare costs for individuals and even lower insurance premiums.
• 😀 The speaker acknowledges that while price transparency won't solve every problem (e.g., insurance complexity and overtreatment), it is a critical step toward reforming the healthcare system.

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