Cynthia Fisher Joins Washington Post Live Event

Cynthia Fisher, founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, joined Washington Post's Frances Stead Sellers to discuss transparent pricing in healthcare, the status of push for legislation in Congress, and how transparency leads to better quality care at much lower costs.

Read excerpts from Cynthia Fisher below:

On the degradation of life expectancy in America… “When we compare the statistics, we’re dying eight years younger than someone living in Japan or Singapore and yet we are being charged over two times more. So, there is a pricing problem, and a big part of that problem is [that] as long as hospitals and insurance companies keep prices in the dark, they can charge whatever they want.”

On what price transparency has revealed… “Now that the curtain has been pulled back, we’re seeing wide price variation… In many hospitals on the same day you can see that childbirth can be six-thousand dollars… and another woman may pay up to sixty-thousand dollars… That’s outrageous.”

On what price transparency has produced… “It is working. It’s not only working in the private sector with employers like Harris Rosen in Orlando, Florida, but at the school district level… More teachers can be hired… better teacher ratios… [this] is a huge win for these employers… They are adding to wages and adding to bonuses for their employees.”