The Trump administration’s recent 2.6% payment hike for hospitals’ Medicare and Medicaid services may sound like good news for the healthcare system. In reality, it highlights a much bigger problem: hospitals already enjoy an unfair advantage while patients are stuck footing inflated bills.
As Charles Sauer writes in the Boston Herald:
“Hospitals just received a 2.6% payment boost, but patients are still stuck paying a 125% markup for the exact same treatment they could get for less at an independent doctor’s office. Fixing this one discrepancy could save patients and taxpayers over $150 billion in the next decade.”
Hospitals routinely overcharge for basic procedures, often two to five times the price patients would pay at a doctor’s office. This is not because hospital care is necessarily better—studies show that quality is often comparable—but because of broken public policy that rewards consolidation.
“Hospitals now employ 80% of the U.S. physician workforce. When a hospital system buys up a doctor’s office, patients suddenly face the same 125% markup they would see in a hospital building.”
The solution, Sauer explains, is simple: site-neutral payments.
“There’s no reason why site-neutral payments cannot be a reality in a unified Congress and White House. Paying the same rate for the same service would save patients money, save taxpayers money, and end the unfair advantage hospitals have enjoyed for too long.”
With bipartisan support already building around site-neutral reform, the time is right for lawmakers to act. Patients—not powerful hospital lobbyists—should come first.
