According to recent data, health expenditures in the U.S. reached $5.3 trillion in 2024. That figure equates to 18% of GDP, and is double what is spent on average in other developed countries. Americans are feeling the pinch, and an estimated 100 million individuals in the country have medical debt.
This situation is unsustainable. While there is broad agreement that the health care system is in crisis, there are sharp divides on what solutions need to be implemented to fix the skyrocketing cost of health care in the U.S. Jordan Bruneau, the Great Lakes Policy Institute’s director, offers some recommendations that Americans themselves can implement without waiting for lawmakers and other policymakers to act on this situation.
He suggests that Americans should demand for transparency in the way health care prices are determined. For example, patients need to demand for upfront pricing of all health care services so that they can know what each provider quotes for a given service. This will help patients identify cases in which prices vary without justification and enable people to choose affordably priced care.
He adds that price transparency will create competition and eliminate the current practice where providers and insurers can charge whatever fees they want without explaining anything to their clients.
Bruneau also recommends that employers demand for access to claims data related to the people they provide health insurance cover for. This data would help to expose incidences of spread pricing within the health insurance industry. This concern isn’t unfounded because an investigation conducted by the New York Times in 2024 found that payment claims sent to employers were often double what the actual cost paid to a provider was. These inflated claims covered the commissions given to middlemen within the health care industry.
When these phantom costs are brought into the open, it will be easier to drive them down or even eliminate them so that the premiums that people pay can come down, Bruneau says.
Bruneau asserts that once employers and individuals push insurers to be transparent on matters of pricing, health care will become similar to other services like auto insurance and plastic surgery where people have sufficient information to enable them make an informed decision about which provider to choose and what they will get as a result of that choice.
Given that health insurance premiums have significantly increased this year after lawmakers failed to extend the ACA tax credits, all stakeholders need to work together to find a lasting solution to the ballooning cost of health care in the country. Otherwise, entities like Astiva Health have little they can do on their own without broader systemic reforms.
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