The cost of care
According to a recent survey by Ipsos and Consumers for Quality Care, consumers want clarity, more straightforward information and lower costs in their health care experience. Unfortunately, reading Stephanie Salmon’s Jan. 2 story, “Hospitals must now post standard charges online,” tells us the new federal mandate for hospitals to publicly provide pricing information won’t deliver the actionable information consumers want and need to make decisions.
Between hard-to-find lists, pricing data that is provided in machine-friendly algorithms totally unreadable by consumers and the potentially hundreds of pages to scan through to pinpoint the procedure a consumer is interested in, there is little likelihood the new rule will bring much help to the 74 percent of American consumers who report hospital fees and unexpected bills are the most frustrating thing about health care.
While the rule isn’t yet producing consumer friendly results, the data is compelling and already highlighted the wide variance in hospital pricing, with one hospital in Michigan charging $791,000 on average for a heart transplant while a New York facility reports charging $1.7 million for the same procedure.
Based on our survey findings, CQC recently launched the Cut Consumer Costs campaign. This effort aims to shine a light on practices and procedures that should be changed to ensure higher-quality, lower-cost consumer health care and to provide some real tools consumers can use to take health care into their own hands.
We urge hospitals, insurers and other health care industry leaders to provide information in ways consumers can easily understand and act on. Consumers are looking to the health care sector to make real reforms that lower their costs without sacrificing quality.
Jason Resendez
Board member, Consumers for Quality Care
Catharpin, Va.
Make it better
Recently in Hilo, I bought a bag of apples that turned out to be rotten, a bag of potatoes that turned out to be sprouted and a bag of tangelos that were rotten.
We live on an island that is the envy of the world in the quality of its agricultural land, and our food is mostly overpriced leftovers from the mainland and Oahu. It’s incredible!
And all the while we hear endless talk about sustainability. Yet, in the 20 years I’ve been here, virtually nothing has really been done to foster food sustainability or food quality or small farm income or energy independence on this island — or to reduce the impact of the corrupt system on Big island consumers.
Now, on top of this, we are facing the beginning of development pressures that will, if not challenged, make this island another overcrowded, exploited, unaffordable disaster like Oahu and Maui have become.
The only solution is political engagement on the part of all the people of this island to stave off disaster, and make this island the kind of place we would want to hand our children.
Everyone get involved, vote, make your representatives feel the heat, or prepare for losing those things that make this place a great place to live.
Harley Brent Hightower
Hilo
