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Can Better Transparency in Healthcare Save Us From the Disaster of So-Called Medicare for All?

10 0
16.10.2026

In 2021, NPR reported on Kyunghee Lee, a Cleveland resident who needs regular steroid injections to treat arthritis in her hand. The cost of each round had been a perfectly manageable $30 for years. Then her doctor’s office moved up one floor in the medical building, and the price exploded.

Her total bill for one treatment was now $1,394, which included a $1,262 facility fee listed as "operating room services." After insurance, Lee's portion was $354 – 10 times what she had paid before.

How could this happen? Under current law, providers are allowed to charge “hospital” rates even when services are rendered at an off-campus location. This antidote for this problem is called site-neutral pricing, which we’ve discussed before. Legislation advancing site-neutral reforms has lingered in Congress, lolling about in committees, not making it into a must-pass legislative package. But there’s some good news on the horizon: Now, the private sector is doing what it does best, and taking the lead to save patients money.

At a recent Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) summit in Washington, DC, headlined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and featuring MAHA alliance members, employer insurance industry group ERIC, and........

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