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[Vanillalite]

NPR

Need knee replacement surgery? It may be worthwhile to head for Tucson.

That's because the average price for a knee replacement in the Arizona city is $21,976, about $38,000 less than it would in Sacramento, Calif. That's according to a report issued Wednesday by the Health Care Cost Institute.

The report, called the National Chartbook on Health Care Prices, uses claims and payment data from three of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. to analyze how prices for procedures vary from state to state, and city to city.

The takeaway?

Health care prices are crazy

"There doesn't seem to be a systematic pattern with respect to what's high and what's low," says David Newman, HCCI's executive director. Newman is lead author of an article published Wednesday online in the journal Health Affairs that accompanied the release of the Chartbook.

 

[Zombine]

Health care in the states is abysmal. Luckily I have good enough insurance where just about everything is covered on the house.

Sometimes unions do good things. Still doesn't excuse what the hell goes on, though.

 

[Lubricus]

Same thing goes for medical and veterinary care in general. Smaller towns are generally cheaper. A 20 mile drive can save you quite a bit.

 

[elrechazado]

Every major insurer has an inline price and ratings tool. Want knee surgery? Type it in there and you can save tons driving 40 miles. You can absolutely save yourself tons of money by being a smart consumer, but hardly anyone uses the tools available.

 

[aeolist]

the result of a hugely distorted market

we need either single-payer or some kind of huge deregulation to make things actually competitive. right now we're in the worst middle-ground possible.