The United States spends 17.2% of GDP on healthcare costs, public and private, almost twice as much as any other developed country, and this percentage is gradually increasing.  In today’s New York Times there is a good discussion about these rising costs (see below).
My recent post, “Fixing Obamacare Rather Than Replacing It,” discusses a comprehensive new healthcare reform proposal by Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute.  Mr. Roy’s plan both expands health insurance coverage beyond ACA levels as well as reining in the huge costs of healthcare. As Mr. Roy says “Among the industrialized member countries of the OECD, the average hospital stay cost $6,222 and lasted 7.7 days in 2009.  In the United States, the average hospital stay cost $18,142, despite lasting only 4.9 days.  In other words, the average daily cost of a hospital stay in the U.S. was 4.6 times the OECD average.”  Mr. Roy goes on to show that it is hospital system consolidation which is especially responsible for driving up the cost of health insurance.
There is a clear example of this situation in Omaha NE where I live.  There are three hospital systems here: Catholic Health Initiatives, the Nebraska Health System and the Methodist Health System.  As stated by the CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska in the Omaha World Herald on August 28, 2014, “Our experience in addressing health care costs is precisely what led us to our current negotiations with Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives.  CHI’s Alegent Creighton Health network of hospitals and physicians charges our members up to 30 percent more than other providers in Omaha for the same services. … These numbers reinforce a simple truth: We cannot allow one provider group to charge our members more for the same services they can receive elsewhere.”
We are fortunate in Omaha to have a choice of three different hospital systems and an insurance company with sufficient clout and integrity to fight price gouging by one of these systems.  But not every community is as fortunate as Omaha in this respect.  This is just one simple example of why cost control needs to be at the center of healthcare reform.