One Hospital Charges $8,000 ... Another Charges $38,000 for the Same Treatment?
May 9, 2013 |
What do you get when you have a for-profit healthcare system, like the one we have here in America, that not a single one of the 33 other OECD countries has?
You get one hospital in Washington, D.C that charges $115,000 to keep a patient on a ventilator, and another hospital in that same city that charges just under $53,000 for the same thing.
You get one hospital in Miami that charges over $166,000 for treating a heart attack with four stents and major complications, and another hospital in that city that charges around $89,000 for the same thing.
For years, we weren’t able to get a clear picture of what various hospitals charged for similar procedures.
Hospitals have gone out of their way for years to hide their procedure price lists, almost as if they were national secrets. But not anymore, because the cat is finally out of the bag.
This week, the Obama administration and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a database that reveals, for the first time, how much the vast majority of hospitals in our country charge for the 100 most common in-patient procedures billed to Medicare.
One Hospital Charges $8,000 ... Another Charges $38,000 for the Same Treatment? | Alternet
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