[tankerdude]

I think the opacity argument is beginning to shift. I was listening to NPR on my drive home the other day and some people have really started working on this very interesting problem.

There are now 3rd party companies that work with insurance companies that will show you the costs that they incur from specific providers. Not only that, but there's an economic incentive for you to skip on going to the highest priced location for drugs or a physician. An example is MRI costs. They differ wildly in costs for the exact same thing. Anywhere from $1K-$10K. There really isn't much difference in either company in terms of quality of service. So what happens is that the insurance company hedges their bet. They'd rather pay you a certain amount of money (say $100) to go to maybe a $2K place instead of the place in Beverly Hills due to their pricing.

So it's changing, but it's taking some time... Either way, it is a brilliant economic mechanism to solve the problem of rising costs in healthcare.

[mendelk]

I heard it too, and also found it interesting. For the curious, its Planet Money[0], Episode #655: Pay Patients, Save Money

[0] http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money

[ahains]

and the name of the company in the episode is Smart Shopper, and a quick google search appears to the website to be https://www.vitalssmartshopper.com. Unfortunately their list of U.S. states doesn't include where I live.