Hospitals are going to have to learn to live on less revenue

Ezra Klein:

Which brings us to the second point: At some point, hospitals are going to have to learn to live on less revenue. This is a when, not an if. Otherwise, the government goes bankrupt, and so too does the private sector, and then no one can pay hospitals anything anyway. The sooner we begin the process of transitioning to a leaner system, the more time we'll have to complete the transition, and the less disruptive the transition will be. Medicare buy-in for a small slice of the population is dipping a toe into the pool. It's safe, and we can always back off and try another approach if we don't like it. But the longer we wait, though, the more likely it is that we get pushed in altogether.

Remember what the per night charge was for my hospital in France? Under $30. My emergency room visit? $32. My in-patient eye surgery? $2400. The US price for my eye surgery was "at a minimum $20,000," according to my eye specialist back here in DC. Joe's appendicitis, which wasn't even an emergency, $24,000. Our costs are absurd.