Huffaker letter: Medical pricing

Medical pricing is a mess in our country. There is no transparency and each insurance company sets their own price for what they are willing to pay. A simple blood test for cholesterol can range from $10 to $400 depending upon who the patient is insured with.

My best solution ever for lowering medical costs is (1) Require all patients, insured or not, to pay an established minimal percentage (say 5 percent) of all services rendered, and (2) Require that all medical providers disclose the cost of each medical service to their patients before the service is rendered. Most people welcome any and all diagnostic testing and procedures suggested by their physicians regardless of the cost. However, if they knew that they would be responsible to pay a percentage of the cost, they might choose not to allow procedures of questionable benefit to be done. Much of the expensive, unnecessary testing that goes on would be eliminated.

Congress needs to take action and require that all health care providers disclose to the public the pricing of their basic medical services. This would give the patient the ability to shop around, drive down costs and gain better control of their health care.

This story was originally published March 10, 2017 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Huffaker letter: Medical pricing."