NYT: How to Reduce Surging Health Care Costs
To the Editor:
Zack Cooper points to a large, consolidated health care system and high administrative costs as among the main drivers of rising spending.
He’s correct, but we need to examine the root cause. While many like to point to America’s “free market” health care system as the reason for high spending, it’s anything but a free market. Americans have few choices among providers and doctors, and little knowledge of the real prices of care.
Third-party control from both the government and insurance companies has kept the market from being free, disadvantaging patients and eliminating competition.
Funding patients directly would give patients the power to choose care that works for them, force providers to compete for their business, and ultimately bring prices down and quality up.
When patients control their health care dollars and markets are truly free, affordability and access naturally follow.
Ge Bai
Washington
The writer is a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an adviser to Fund the Patient.