Price Transparency Laws Don't Work

In a functioning market, you know what you owe before you buy a good or service. That is not the case in health care, as we know. Because of increasing deductibles, the failure of price transparency is becoming increasingly irritating to patients.

Some believe a solution can be legislated. This has occurred in New York and Massachusetts; and one of my favorite state legislators, Senator Nancy Barto, has tried to legislate it in Arizona
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Effective January 2014, Massachusetts law requires health providers to provide a maximum price for a procedure within 48-hours of a prospective patient asking. Well, it has not worked, according to a ”secret shopper” survey of professionals conducted by the Pioneer Institute.

Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog,