Health Affairs December 14, 2018
In the past decade, there has been a well-documented wave of consolidation among hospitals, physicians, and other providers. This includes horizontal hospital mergers as well as vertical consolidation—acquisition of physician groups by larger health systems. Also well documented are the increases in prices for services that tend to follow provider consolidation.
The commercially insured bear the biggest brunt of this upward pressure on prices, including the more than 150 million Americans covered under their employer’s health plan. Commercial rates for hospital services are on average 89 percent higher than what Medicare pays for the exact same service, as much as 500 percent higher in some markets. The result is that family premiums for commercial, employer-based coverage average an eye-popping $19,616...
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