For decades, the prices that hospitals and physicians charge private insurers have been treated as trade secrets. Even though inflated prices are an enormous reason why health care is so much more expensive in the United States than in other countries, we have only a hazy picture of what those prices actually are. Over the past decade, however, 18 states have embraced a new approach to revealing and clarifying the pricing practices of the health care industry. They have created “all-payer claims databases” in which they compile information on the prices that all insurers, public and private, pay for medical care.
