The price we pay for health care often has little connection to what it actually costs. One hospital decided to investigate. Gundersen Health System set out to tally how much it cost to perform knee-replacement surgery. For nearly a decade, Gundersen Health System’s hospital in La Crosse, Wis., boosted the price of knee-replacement surgery an average of 3 percent a year. By 2016, the average list price was more than $50,000, including the surgeon and anesthesiologist. Yet even as administrators raised the price, they had no real idea what it cost to perform the surgery — the most common for hospitals in the U.S. outside of those related to childbirth. They set a price using a combination of educated guesswork and a canny assessment of market opportunity. The actual cost? $10,550 at most, including the physicians. (Melanie Evans, Wall Street Journal)
