Pacific Standard:
Health-care costs are growing in the U.S., thanks in large part to private insurers
10 May 2018
Health economists Zack Cooper, Stuart V. Craig, Martin Gaynor, and John Van Reenen recently released an updated version of an older paper analyzing variations in health-care pricing for privately insured patients across the country. They noted significant variations across regions and hospitals, and within hospitals. They also found that a significant driver of the variation is market structure, concluding that "[m]onopoly hospitals are associated with 12 percent higher prices," whereas hospitals located in concentrated insurer markets have lower prices.
Related publications
‘The Price Ain’t Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured’, Zack Cooper, Stuart V. Craig, Martin Gaynor and John Van Reenen, mimeo, May 7 2018
http://www.healthcarepricingproject.org/sites/default/files/20180507_variationmanuscript_0.pdf