Answer: Not enough
“That side has been squeezed,” he said of the cost-shifting to consumers. “How much more juice can we get out of squeezing it?”
“Prices for hospital services, the single biggest component of medical care, accelerated in December and even faster in January, to an annual rate of 5.5%.
Hospitals are pressing for higher payments as their long-term contracts with medical insurers come up for renewal. And greater market concentration caused by chains buying out smaller hospitals is helping to push medical inflation upward, as is the historically opaque nature of healthcare pricing.” MORE >>
