Private Insurance Costs

Guest: Zack Cooper, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Economics at Yale University  The window for enrolling in health insurance through healthcaare.gov closed last week with a bang: more than half a million people signed up on Tuesday alone, prompting President Obama to highlight the success in his year-end press conference. The President also noted that health care prices are increasing at a slower pace than they have in 50 years. But prices are still increasing, as anyone who’s paid a hospital bill or renewed an insurance policy can tell you. One of the oft-cited criticisms of the Affordable Care Act is that it hasn’t really made care more affordable. Its primary focus has been getting more people covered by insurance through a variety of programs and penalties.  Tackling the high cost of health care in American has been a challenge, in part, because of a simple lack of data. The government knows what it pays for procedures covered by Medicare. But no one has had a good handle on how much the rest of us paying for scans or surgery at the hospital. Until now.