While this isn’t what I’d consider “light reading” for your Wednesday afternoon, I stumbled upon a discussion about hospitals and transparency within the structure of what services cost.
As of January 1st of this year, according to Carle’s website, hospitals are required to “post their ‘current, standard charges.'” which are available for your viewing pleasure (er… displeasure) now. There’s an index, which isn’t exactly user-friendly, but you can scroll through pages and pages of procedures and their corresponding costs. That said, this appears to be what the pure cost is and doesn’t take into account insurance, Medicare, and things of the like.
OSF’s is posted here. Urbana is listed first.
This ruling has been installed by U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service, and I did a bit of reading on Congress Bill H.R. 6508 —‘‘Hospital Price Transparency and Disclosure Act of 2018″ — so it appears to be an act installed nationwide. So if you’re reading this from another city or state, you might look into what things cost at the hospital in your community.
While this doesn’t really tell us a whole lot about our healthcare system that we don’t already know — shit is expensive! — it is an interesting look into the belly of the beast.