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Comment by chasd00 | Hacker News Reader

the "invisible hand" can't work because there is no price list available to consumers. That's the craziest thing to me, you can't get a price list for a procedure ahead of time and compare with competitors to get a better deal. There's no way for price discovery to work without an informed consumer.

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So... Imagine there's a law banning surprise bills. No longer separate bills from a hospital and then from a surgeon and then from anesthesiologist and then from the janitor. No "oopsie, sorry, your pimple removal went wrong and you had a cardiac arrest, here's your bill".

How much better will things become?

A law? How come hospitals and doctors that don't have surprise bills out-compete those that do? Surely if this was a thing that patients cum customers demanded, there would be a provider willing to step in an supply it.

Customers demand it, but customers are not willing to pay for it.

With a choice to pay $1k "with a small probability of surprise bill" or $5k all-included most patients will prefer the former.

That's how insurance should work in theory so its not like that's a new idea it's just that modern insurance companies are godawful at that original purpose of not screwing people over.

Healthcare in the US is a broken market due to regulatory capture among other things. If Buffett and Bezos and Dimon couldn’t solve it, it’s probably not going to be solved without the government breaking up the cartel. That’s a valid function of government even by fairly libertarian standards.

My employer recently updated our health insurance offering with a plan from UHC called Surest. They were formerly branded as Bind, but have seemed to pivot after their UHC acquisition (the former Bind program had on-demand coverage, whereas the Surest program is more like a traditional copay plan). Part of this plan is an app where you can type in a procedure, browse a list of providers, and select one based on copay price. They claim that their copay is based on UHC’s evaluation of their efficiency and effectiveness. The copay is supposed to be a singular all-in price covering all services related to the procedure (e.g., no separate bill for anesthesia, etc). Dr visit $10-$65, ER visit $325, etc.

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