California’s lawmakers have spent decades crafting well-intentioned rules designed to keep the state’s health care prices in check. But a new report shows that, clearly, something backfired.
The Golden State dominates a new list of U.S. regions that saw the highest growth in hospital prices paid by private insurers in recent years. Out of 19 such regions, 11 were in California, according to a Health Affairs study released Monday.
“We end up with this situation where the most regulated state has the highest prices,” said Ge Bai, professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This is the exact opposite of what regulators had intended to achieve.”
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