Hi everybody Cheryl Ackison here.

Cheryl Ackison here.

Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours.

Today we're going to talk about bringing down the

exorbitant cost of what we pay for hospital and medical services like surgery

MRIs and lab tests. It turns out solving the problem may be relatively simple, but that

sure doesn't mean it's easy. At the outset, I think it's worth saying that after talking to many many health

experts over the years about this including Democrats Republicans and

nonpartisan's the ones with the best track records say that the answer to solving

our health care costs isn't with spreading around the costs by giving insurance for everyone.

In fact, they say that just ensures the costs will

continue to go up because someone's willing to pay them and spread out the costs.

The answer, according to the experts I trust most, lies in actually reducing health care costs at the root of the problem.

It won't be solved if everybody has insurance. It won't be solved, they say, if the government provides insurance for everyone,

that just escalates the cost. So what is the answer? A lot of people think it's negotiating

rates with hospitals, with doctors, with using buying and purchase power to shop around

to make sure that what consumers are paying for, what patients are paying for, is more in line with what things

cost.

And that's what a lot of states are trying to do is they try to make their state health care

plan solvent, which is part of what we're talking about today.

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