Uninsured pay 2.5 times more for hospital care

The uninsured pay nearly three times more for hospital services than health insurers pay, and the gap between what they’re charged and what insurers pay has soared since 1984.

Those are the results of a study being released today and published in the journal Health Affairs, a report expected to intensify the pressure on hospitals to lower charges for patients with no health insurance. More than 60 class-action lawsuits have been filed against hospitals for charging higher rates to the uninsured.

The study analyzing 2004 data was conducted by Gerard Anderson, a health policy and management professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore. “The uninsured get trapped. It puts them into bankruptcy. This is really below the public’s radar screen,” he said.

Critics of the findings, such as the American Hospital Association, say hospitals have made major changes since 2004, lowering the amount charged to the poor in response to 2004 Health and Human Services Department guidelines that set the stage for reduced costs for low-income patients.

About 45 million people in America are uninsured. Among the findings:

“The uninsured and those who self-pay for care were charged on average 2.5 times more for hospital services in 2004 than what health insurers paid, and three times more than Medicare-allowed costs. For every $100 in Medicare-allowed costs, the average hospital charged a self-paying patient $307.

“The gap between what the uninsured and other self-paying patients are charged for hospital care and what Medicare pays has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

“Hospitals rarely recoup the full amount they charge patients. In 2004, for every $100 the hospital charged, it collected $39.

Hospitals generally set a price for services but then negotiate lower fees with private insurers; they also are limited by what they can charge Medicare-covered patients. Hospitals provide $25 billion a year in uncompensated care every year, according to the AHA.