By: Maggie Fox
Why does a knee replacement cost $29,000 in Kansas but $40,000 in next-door Colorado?
Health care prices are all over the map in the U.S., a new study finds. It digs deeply into the crazy pattern of health costs across the U.S. and shows there is very little consistency. The report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) finds prices for the same procedures vary by sometimes huge amounts — even within the same state.
Unlike other reports, this one looks at prices paid by people with private health insurance.“Prices for medical services varied more than threefold in certain instances,” the team wrote in the report, which was published in the journal Health Affairs.