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In reply to the discussion: Obama administration quietly approves new Obamacare loophole benefiting insurance companies. [View all]Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Its been pioneered in California by CalPERS, a giant agency that manages health and retirement benefits for public employees. CalPERS started with knee and hip replacements in 2011, steering patients to hospitals that had been vetted for quality and charged $30,000 or less.
Ann Boynton, the agencys health benefits director, said the program has been a success, with patients able to choose from about 50 hospitals. People do not feel like we went to bargain-basement hospitals where the quality is not good, she said. The quality is the same, and in some instances, better.
Economist James C. Robinson of the University of California at Berkeley studied the CalPERS experiment and found not only that many patients shifted to lower-cost hospitals, saving money, but that expensive hospitals responded by cutting their prices. . . . . . ."
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140516/POLITICS03/305160048#ixzz327HmeiUB