New Jersey residents are falling behind and there’s a clear culprit: soaring healthcare expenses. A recent report from the Governor’s Office of Health Care Affordability and Transparency details the growing burden on households. According to one survey from the report, nearly half of all New Jersey respondents delayed or avoided care due to high costs; over a third had difficulty covering their healthcare bills. In 2022, it notes, out-of-pocket medical spending averaged $2400 in NJ, surpassing the national average by 37%, while quality decreased for many performance measures.
While there are no silver bullets in an industry as complex as healthcare, one solution that could bring down costs significantly is price transparency. Fortunately, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has developed an initiative to address just that: The New Jersey Health Care Affordability, Responsibility, and Transparency (HART) Program. Launched in 2021, the program is designed to slow the rate of healthcare cost growth. While the HART program is a promising start, more needs to be done to hold hospitals accountable. It’s time for New Jerseyans to push for full transparency and ensure healthcare providers live up to their commitments.
To understand why transparency is so important, consider first how opaque and frustrating the process is today. Say you go to your primary care physician for a routine checkup. He notices an irregularity in your bloodwork and tells you to go to the hospital within the next week for a colonoscopy. You go to the hospital the next day and sign a piece of paper that guarantees you’ll pay all ensuing charges as a condition of care, irrespective of cost or medical necessity. You have the procedure and return home. At no point in the process were projected costs discussed.
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Steve Pociask is president and CEO of the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.TheAmericanConsumer.org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal.