Lessons from international experience in determining health care prices

In light of the major financial burden that health care places on many households and the limited competition in many health care markets, some policymakers and experts have called for governments to play a larger role in determining the prices of health care services, such as by regulating those prices or introducing a public option. The late Uwe Reinhardt wrote and spoke for many years in support of a larger role for the public sector in determining health care prices.

On October 7, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy and the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings hosted, in honor of Uwe’s work, the final webinar in a series examining whether a larger public role is appropriate.

This panel examined the systems used to determine the prices of health care services in other developed countries. The panel provided a typology of the approaches commonly in use in other countries and examine a few specific systems in greater detail, with a particular focus on determining what lessons these other countries’ systems may have for policymakers in the United States.

Viewers submitted question for panelists by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter with #HealthCarePrices.