patrick.net

This is how you get healthcare costs down. Let the market compete under 100% price transparency just like auto insurance, Flat screen TVs, or any other product that has seen price declines over the past couple of decades.

This is a man that understands how an economy works. ObamaCare , lol. He is really making Obama look like a clueless, lazy, “community organizer” who didn’t know his ass from his face.



If finalized, the proposed Transparency in Coverage rule would require health plans to:

Give consumers real-time, personalized access to cost-sharing information, including an estimate of their cost-sharing liability for all covered healthcare items and services, through an online tool that most group health plans and health insurance issuers would be required to make available to all of their members, and in paper form, at the consumer's request. This requirement would empower consumers to shop and compare costs between specific providers before receiving care.

Disclose on a public website their negotiated rates for in-network providers and allowed amounts paid for out-of-network providers. Making this information available to the public is intended to drive innovation, support informed, price-conscious decision-making, and promote competition in the healthcare industry. Making this information public directly helps the consumer, but, more importantly, creates new opportunities for researchers, employers and other developers to build new tools to help consumers.

The proposed rule would also encourage health insurance issuers to offer new or different plan designs that incentivize consumers to shop for services from lower-cost, higher-value providers by allowing issuers to take credit for "shared savings" payments in their medical loss ratio (MLR) calculations.

In addition, the Administration is finalizing a rule that will require hospitals to provide patients with clear, accessible information about their "standard charges" for the items and services they provide, including through the use of standardized data elements, making it easier to shop and compare across hospitals, as well as mitigating surprises.