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White House Wants Patients to See Health Care Prices Upfront

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - New rules from the Trump administration Friday would
   require insurers and hospitals to disclose upfront the actual prices
   for common tests and procedures to promote competition and push down
   costs.

   But the sweeping changes face stiff pushback from the health care
   industry. A coalition of major hospital groups quickly announced that
   hospitals will sue to block key provisions, which in any case don't
   take effect immediately.

   Even in an ideal world where information flows freely, patients and
   their families would have to deal with a learning curve to get
   comfortable with the byzantine world of health care billing. What
   sounds like the same procedure can have different billing codes
   depending on factors that may not be apparent to an untrained person.

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