Prescription to lower medical costs
Pro: Regulators would set fair prices with Medicare as baseline
For those of us who live and work in the Bay Area, the price of housing and the price of health care dominate our kitchen-table conversations. That’s because we pay some of the highest prices in the nation for both, and we can’t live without either.
Things are only getting worse. Consider this: In the time it takes a worker to earn an additional $1 in monthly wages, the deductible she pays for health care has gone up $6.
Delivering relief to struggling families and bringing rationality to health-care prices is the reason SEIU California has joined health-care consumers to sponsor Assembly Bill 3087. The Health Care Price Relief Act looks to Medicare — an established model that has kept health care costs down for seniors, while keeping the doors to health care open to every eligible person over age 65. Medicare prices are widely accepted by doctors and hospitals, so we know they work for patients and providers alike.
Out-of-control health-care prices are squeezing workers, employers and state and local budgets alike. We all have a stake in getting the cost of medical procedures and medicine under control — it’s the first and most fundamental step needed to reshape our health-care system in terms of accountability, quality and access to all.
Not only are soaring health-care prices unsustainable; they are completely unjustified.
Americans are paying up to 20 times as much for procedures and medicine as other advanced countries — and we aren’t getting better care for it. Despite the insurance companies’ claims that patients are to blame for high prices because we are over-consuming health care, the statistics say the opposite: In the past five years, costs have soared even though we are using the same, and in some cases less, care.
The only explanation for out-of-control prices is pure market power; corporate giants are gobbling up hospitals and doctors’ offices to create huge conglomerates with the power to raise prices ever higher. California has been trusting them to do the right thing and make care affordable; you only have to look at the headlines about Sutter Health’s monopoly power and price-fixing to know that model simply doesn’t work. The industry knows sick people have no choice but to pay whatever they charge. After all, you can’t shop around for the cheapest emergency room once you’re already in the ambulance with the sirens blaring.
Under this proposed law, a commission of health-care experts — who are free from financial influence — would determine a fair base price for healthcare services, using Medicare as baseline. Doctors, hospitals and health plans could charge more only if they prove higher rates are justified.
Of course, the medical lobby has taken up arms in the state Capitol, aiming to defeat this landmark legislation and protect its power over prices. But families can’t afford to let medical monopolies keep taking more and more of their paychecks.
California led the nation in expanding health-care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, demonstrating the nation’s broadest vision for quality, accessible care. Now 93 percent of Californians have a health insurance card in their pockets; we must take the next step — AB3087— to ensure they can afford to use it.