Barron’s and MarketWatch Run PRA Op-Ed Calling for Price Transparency to Address Wage Stagnation
Barron’s and MarketWatch recently ran an op-ed by Cynthia A. Fisher, founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, explaining how healthcare price transparency can address American workers’ falling real wages due to high inflation. Cynthia discusses how employers can use actual, upfront prices to identify quality, less expensive care and share these savings with employees in the form of higher wages. She argues:
Skyrocketing health insurance costs disproportionately hurt low-income employees because they account for a bigger portion of their compensation. Premium increases replace what otherwise would be competitive wage increases. The middle class is hard-hit, too. According to the consultancy Willis Towers Watson, the bottom 60% of families by earnings saw their entire compensation growth between 1999 and 2015 go to fund health insurance cost increases, forestalling any pay increases. Families in the 60th to 80th percentile of earners still had most of their compensation increases diverted to fund health insurance…..
When actual prices are known, employers will be empowered to treat their healthcare costs like any other aspect of their supply chain, with a keen eye toward price and quality, and share savings with employees in the form of higher pay. They will be able to easily follow the footsteps of innovative companies like Employee Solutions in Texas or Rosen Hotels in Florida that aren’t waiting on Washington to fix healthcare. These employers have saved 30% to 50% on their healthcare costs for their businesses and employees by directly contracting with price-transparent providers…..
By strongly enforcing price transparency rules, the Biden administration can usher in a price-transparent, pro-consumer healthcare system that reflects its broader healthcare and economic goals to increase competition and lower prices. Doing so can reduce crushing healthcare costs and raise real employee wages, overcoming two major problems facing the country today and putting ordinary Americans on sounder financial footing emerging from the pandemic.
Read the full op-ed here.