Hospital CEOs Noticeably Absent From Witness List
Hospital Watch, a watchdog group dedicated to shining a light on corporate hospital systems as the top culprit in driving up U.S. healthcare costs, issued the following statement ahead of today’s Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Attributable to Adam L. Buckalew, senior advisor for Hospital Watch:
“While we applaud Congress for shining a light on hospitals, which data shows are the top driver of healthcare costs in the United States, the absence of hospital CEOs at the hearing is disappointing. We can’t have a conversation about affordability without bringing hospital executives to the table. Congress needs to hold hospital executives accountable for their overcharging, hidden fees, and lack of transparency if we are going to have a meaningful national dialogue to bring down costs for Americans.”
Hospital Watch recently launched a price-gouging report examining how hospitals are overcharging patients for their care across the country and fueling the nation’s healthcare affordability crisis.
Learn more at hospitalwatch.com
CHEATSHEET: Making Healthcare More Affordable Starts With Hospitals
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Hospital Prices — Not Insurer Profits — Are The Real Problem
The Wall Street Journal: “There’s no evidence insurers are getting ‘rich’ off of ObamaCare…the real problem in health care is that the prices — set by hospitals and drug companies — are too damn high.” The Wall Street Journal notes that over 1,600 hospital mergers in the last two decades have allowed systems to restrict competition and raise prices, driving premiums higher for consumers.
Kaiser Family Foundation: “Hospital spending accounted for 40% of the growth in national health spending between 2022 and 2024, a far larger share than any other health spending category.” The concentration of spending growth highlights hospitals’ outsized role in the nation’s healthcare affordability crisis and underscores why policymakers must focus on hospital pricing when addressing rising costs.
Hospital Consolidation Is Fueling Overcharging
Health Affairs (cited by The Washington Post): “The substantial increase in hospital [consolidation] over the past decade means that many local hospital markets that used to be relatively competitive have become concentrated…and some markets that were already concentrated are moving closer to monopoly.” The authors warn that insurers now face “increased challenges in controlling health care spending” because dominant hospital systems can dictate prices.
CNN: “Inpatient care in nearly half of metropolitan areas was controlled by one or two health systems in 2023 […] hospital consolidation has led to higher prices, while hospital acquisitions of physician practices also tend to drive up costs[.]” The result is higher costs and fewer choices for patients.
Even Non-Profit Hospitals Are Price Gouging
The Washington Post: “At Washington University, officials are…looking to increase revenue from clinical care at its hospitals to make up for the losses.” This admission underscores how hospital systems increasingly raise prices on patients to offset unrelated budget shortfalls, rather than cutting costs or improving efficiency.
Experts Agree: Hospital Rates Drive Premiums
POLITICO: “…the biggest culprit in rising health care costs is the rates charged by hospitals and doctors’ offices, which are in turn covered by insurers, experts say.” Even voluntary cuts by insurers would have little lasting impact, experts warn, unless hospital prices themselves are brought down.
Republican U.S. Senator Rick Scott (Former CEO of HCA Healthcare) noted in POLITICO, “Insurance companies are dependent on what hospitals charge. I used to run the largest hospital company so I can tell you, insurance can’t charge a whole bunch less if the hospitals charge more.”
Hospital Transparency Is Essential
Heritage Foundation Healthcare Policy Expert Ed Haislmaier: “It’s not going to be a significant reduction until there is a way that [insurers] are paying the providers less.” Haislmaier emphasizes in POLITICO that hospital and provider pricing — not insurer margins — must be addressed to meaningfully reduce costs.
Axios: “Hospital pricing remains opaque, and it’s possible for the same drug at the same hospital to have a dozen different prices on the same day[.]” Opaque contracts, inconsistent billing practices, and lack of federal transparency rule enforcement allow these massive price differences to persist — adding to the growing body of evidence that hospital pricing practices are a major driver of higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs for Americans.
Hospital Prices Explain Why U.S. Healthcare Costs So Much More
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF): As mentioned in POLITICO, “According to an August analysis by KFF, the nonpartisan health research group, the higher prices for care that Americans pay in hospitals and doctors offices account for 80 percent of the difference in spending between patients in the U.S. and other countries.”
Seniors And Taxpayers Are Hit Hardest
60 Plus Association: “Hospital prices have grown far faster than inflation, wages, or Medicare spending — placing an outsized burden on seniors living on fixed incomes.” 60 Plus urges Congress to take “a hard look at hospital pricing practices and consolidation trends that distort the marketplace.”
BOTTOMLINE: Making Healthcare More Affordable Starts With Hospitals
From healthcare experts to bipartisan research institutions to voices from both political parties, the conclusion is consistent:
- Hospital monopolies raise prices behind closed doors
- Patients face surprise bills and hidden fees
- Transparency rules are weakly enforced
- Competition has collapsed in many local markets
Making healthcare affordable starts with holding hospitals accountable.