Since 2007, health-care prices in the United States have increased by 21.6 percent—more than the general rate of inflation in the economy (17.3 percent). While few dispute that these increases are a problem, the debate over the cause and solution to rising costs rages on. Democrats have doubled down on expanding public insurance; Republicans sought to roll back the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion and generally envision a smaller role for public insurance programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation sheds further light on what's driving these price increases. To begin, prices are growing much faster for private insurers than for public insurers like Medicare and Medicaid. The chart below, from the analysis, shows a growing disparity in inpatient hospital prices for patients with private, as compared to public, insurance:
Between 2014 and 2018, the researchers note, prices for inpatient hospital care grew by 13 percent for patients with private insurance, and by only 3 percent for patients with public insurance. The researchers also highlight growth in the average prices of two common inpatient procedures—laparoscopic appendectomies and knee replacements—prices for both have increased dramatically in recent years. The chart below, for example, illustrates how the price of appendectomies has gone up for privately insured patients:
[For more on this story by DWYER GUNN, go to https://psmag.com/economics/he...-to-private-insurers]
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