The answer to America’s health care cost problem might be in Maryland

[Editor]

Maryland has a health care system unique in the United States: a global hospital budget. Here’s how it works.

Maryland is the site of two big experiments in containing health care costs. The first: Since the 1970s, the state has set the prices hospitals can charge for medical care, known as all-payer rate setting.

The second experiment: Since 2014, it’s also capped how much health spending can grow overall, including how much revenue each hospital can take in.

These kinds of regulations are common abroad — France, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany all have some variation of rate setting and set budgets for health care spending. But here in the United States, Maryland stands alone.

The rest of the story: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...8/maryland-health-care-global-hospital-budget

 

[jrt_ms1995]

That's not the answer, but it is a large part of the problem.