Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

Re:Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients... by lotsofpulp on Monday January 18, 2021 @01:41PM (#25824981)

Because a person is capable of determining good produce from bad produce and make informed decisions when purchasing groceries.

The same is not true for healthcare. Even when purchasing shelter, people are not sufficiently informed to be able to make a good decision, hence the existence of electrical, plumbing, and structural codes and inspections.

With healthcare, people are extremely uninformed. The costs are extremely high. The government doesn’t necessarily need to vet the doctors’ diagnoses and prescribed remedies, but they could. So could insurance companies, which is what currently happens in the US.

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Re:Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients... by aksss on Monday January 18, 2021 @02:13PM (#25825341)

This is a bit chicken-and-egg. People are uninformed about cost and quality of healthcare because the third-party payer system obscures detail (often intentionally).

Spend some time uninsured and you become a very discerning consumer.

Further, for every service that requires healthcare advocacy (often provided by family members, btw, not professionals even in existing system) there are probably >five that are commodity services (labs, prescriptions, diagnosis, imaging, etc.)

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