Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by andruby 2970 days ago
My personal opinion is that this should be illegal. Prices for the same treatment should be equal regardless of patient or insurer. The insurance repayment policies could differ, but at least the base pay won't seem completely made up.

Disclaimer: I only lived in the US for a year.

2 comments

The base rate is the same (in theory), but insurance policy A is only going to pay 18% of procedure Z and policy B will pay 27%; uninsured patients will be offered a 50% discount if they pay promptly, otherwise the bill will eventually be sold to collections for 1% if it's not paid)
Isn't it anti-competitive? How can consumers make an informed decision as to which care provider to visit?

Isn't this in the same boat as price-fixing?