Want to know what a hospital charges? Good luck

Kaiser Health News staff writer Christopher Weaver reports: "When Bill Rose broke his leg in a motorcycle accident, he knew he'd end up paying for surgery himself-- he was temporarily uninsured. So he asked the hospital for an estimate and negotiated a 30 percent discount, bringing the price down to $8,260 in exchange for paying up front. But a month after the operation, the hospital told Rose, an insurance salesman from Defiance, Ohio, that the price had soared: He owed $10,000 more" (Weaver, 6/29). Read entire article.

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.