What Economists Don’t Know About the Health Care Industry

Recently, I resorted to a rare economic argument in a health IT article, pointing out that it’s unfair to put the burden of high health care costs on the patients. Now 101 economists have come out publicly recommending that very injustice. Their analysis shows the deep reluctance of those who are supposed to guide our health care policy to
admit how distorted the current system is, and how entrenched are the powerful forces that keep it from reforming.

Andy Oram

My argument cited numerous studies and anecdotal reports to show the deplorable record of the US health care industry regarding costs: providers who don’t reveal prices, providers who don’t know what the patient’s out-of-pocket costs will be, wrenching differences in insurance payments for the same procedure, missing quality information that consumers would need to make fair comparisons, and more. Just as icing on the cake, the most recent Consumer Reports (November 2015) offered a five-page article on all the screw-ups that lead to medical “sticker shock.”...

But in this case, the average patient has knowledge that these economists lack. The problems are also well known to anyone in the health care industry who has the courage and clarity of vision to acknowledge what’s going on. If we want the system to change, let’s put public pressure on the people who are actually responsible for the problems–not the hapless patient.