As information disclosures and transparency are a frequent theme on this blog, our readers may be interested in a recent development in US healthcare.
As of January first, 2019, all hospitals providing health care in the US had to publish a list of all their charges - including for drugs, instruments, ancillary services and so on. The result of this, according to reporting by the New York Times, is that hospitals have published online spreadsheets with thousands of items, described in classically obscure ways. For instance,
"Baptist Health in Miami helpfully told consumers that an “Embolza Protect 5.5” would cost them $9,818 while a “Visceral selective angio rad” runs a mere $5,538."
Next to being difficult to understand in and of themselves, the prices shown are in most cases not what individual consumers would actually have to pay - either through insurance or as private customers.
Bulk disclosure of this kind has been the object of intense criticism for at least a decade. In particular, Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl Schneider have discussed the counterproductive effects of disclosures in healthcare in their book More than you wanted to know: the failure of mandated disclosures.
