Hospitals across the country are charging private insurance companies 2.5 times what they get from Medicare for the same care, according to a new RAND Corporation study of hospital prices released today, the New York Times reported. In a half-dozen of 49 states in the survey, including West Virginia and Florida, private insurers paid three or more times what Medicare did for overnight inpatient stays and outpatient care. While the pandemic caused losses for many hospitals, many of these big systems are sitting on large profit reserves, while also receiving some of the $175 billion in aid Congress allocated to make up for their costs and lost revenue. Employers provide health insurance coverage for more than 153 million Americans. The companies and insurers in the study paid nearly $20 billion more than Medicare would have for the same care from 2016 through 2018, according to the RAND researchers.
