Clark Howard Speaks Out on HDHPs

Created May 10 by: HDHP Expert                                                    Print Print

Question:

“High deductible health.  How do we compare prices?  Clark is often promoting and supporting high deductible health plans.  He encourages us to compare prices and the value of what we are getting for the money, but how?  I would like to hear him give consumers details about where they can find info and what providers charge for a procedure, details about when and why the procedure is needed and data on the outcomes.  To my knowledge it is not available and if he is going to push us to become better consumers it would be nice for him to push the providers to give us the data we need to make better decisions.”

 

Clark Howard:

“HERE HERE! I am with that poster 100%.  The reality is that we don’t have the information available to us today in order for us to truly become consumers of health care.  And it’s because the system has become so discombobulated with how people get health coverage.  I will tell you that we get into a mode where we buy health care like we buy dental care, we will get what economists call transparency.  We’ll get the information available to us on pricing that we have on virtually every product or service we buy almost without exception except for health care.”

 

This exchange can be found at the 3:45 mark of the “Clark Stinks” podcast from 4/21/10 (clicking this link will open a web-based audio player). 

Source: Clark Stinks (constructive criticism of Clark’s viewpoints) page of the ClarkHoward.com website.  More about Clark Howard can be found here.
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