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Yale News:
Hospital prices show `mind-boggling' variation across U.S. driving up health care costs

15 December 2015

The prices hospitals negotiate with health insurance companies vary enormously within and across geographic regions in the United States, according to a new study coauthored by a Yale economist. ... ''Virtually everything we know about health spending and most of the basis for federal health policy comes from the analysis of Medicare data,'' says Zack Cooper, assistant professor of health policy and economics at Yale University, one of the study's authors. ''The rub is that Medicare only covers 16 percent of the population. The majority of individuals - 60 percent of the U.S. population - receive health care coverage from private insurers. This new dataset really allows us to understand what influences health spending for the majority of Americans. This information is critical to creating better public policy.''

This article was published online by Yale News on December 15, 2015
Link to article here

Related publications
'The Price Ain't Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured', Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig, Martin Gaynor and John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No.1395, December 2015

Related links
Zack Cooper webpage
John Van Reenen webpage
Growth Programme webpage

Read more... Yale News