Know what you paid for your last blood test? Unless you have an HSA, you probably don’t. But if we don’t know what things cost, how can providers compete for our dollars? They don’t. Prices, and thus premiums, go up.
In this video from Reason.tv, the team profiles an Oklahoma treatment center that takes either Canadians who have been rationed out of their system, or people like me who pay out of pocket (HSA). I looked into this treatment center and guess what I found? Shockingly, a price list. See for yourself.
The prices are also transparent (and much lower) at my HSA-friendly doctor’s office in North Carolina. These guys are lowering prices, increasing quality and refusing the bureaucratic, ballooning, cost-shifting third-party system the government has created here in the US. I pay $40 for a visit and I shift $0 to you. PPO/HMO folks pay a $30 copay and shift $100 or more to the risk pool (and wonder why premiums go up). Perverse.
As long as we charge the risk pool for an in-grown toenails, Viagra or outpatient surgery, we’ll continue to see medical inflation–just as we would if we charged oil changes to Geico. Democratic healthcare reform bills will only compound the problem. Then they’ll try to control costs through rationing and more interference in the market–a deadly combination of distortion and bureaucracy.
