A few years back the Boston Globe produced a series on health care costs, and one thing in particular stood out to me- MRIs in the Longwood Medical Area ranged from a few thousand dollars to 15k or more. All within a short walking distance, all at world class institutions. Collusion with HMOs was a factor, but not the sole explanation.
I personally had one at Harvard Vanguard, and my OOP was at my cap, 2500. It was certainly more expensive than that, though I can only speculate as to how much.
MRI scans are a good example of how healthcare economics bears no relation to prices charged.
An MRI scanner is a huge capital cost that has to be defrayed over years of use. So it works out to be a fairly hefty charge per scan.
Insurance companies now have an incentive to minimise the use of something expensive, so they’re likely to push for fewer scans on their patients.
But the incremental cost of one scan is tiny, so from an overall point of view, it’s best to have the machine operating as near to capacity as possible.
In short- insurance companies will still ration care but they won’t even do it well.
If I go through my hospital system and my insurance, I’ll still be out near $3000 (if I have to pay deductible, etc) but there are third party MRI-marts (not its real name) that are $800 cash.
I fear that the idea of Medicare for All ends up being a distraction from actually fixing Obamacare though, or allows democrats to deny hat there are problems with it. I’d like to see the bill me know that it is a comprehensive reform of the ACA that provides Medicare as an option that people can buy in to, perhaps staring with markets with no other option.
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