Health care is a service like any other. We ought to expect price transparency for medical goods and services to make informed choices that maximize value. However, Americans have been gulled into believing that health care is too expensive to purchase out of pocket.
Instead, private insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid — known as third-party payers — pay the medical bills on our behalf. The ubiquity of third-party payment supports monopolistic pricing, preventing the health care sector from functioning as a competitive and efficient market. This is the real reason why the U.S. outspends other first-world nations in health care.
The disincentive to address fraud is exactly what I have been saying for years. It’s time fix it. I founded the company behind HR 6690- which finally passed the House in September, after previous versions did not. Get this bill passed, change the Medicaid incentives to promote fraud prevention, detection and deterrence, and lot of cost will drop out of the system.