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It's time for fair and transparent hospital pricing to make care more affordable for all.
We all know it: health care prices are rising at unsustainable rates. High costs are putting a strain on patients’ pocketbooks, and employers are often forgoing critical investments in their businesses. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is fighting to make health care more affordable for all Americans.
A commonsense solution is to end pervasive billing practices by corporate hospital systems. They take over smaller, independent physician practices and mark up prices to unreasonable levels. That may help the corporate bottom line, but it also hurts patients. Read More
Creating a more equitable system for the health of America
Your health shouldn’t depend on the color of your skin, where you live or how much money you make. But for too many Americans, those factors stand in the way of achieving good health and well-being.
These are just a few of the statistics that demonstrate the urgency of addressing the nation’s health equity crisis:
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Black mothers continue to be two to three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white mothers, with most of those deaths being preventable.
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Black and Hispanic children are more than three times as likely to experience food insecurity as white children – a condition that clearly impacts health.
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80% of rural Americans are medically underserved and tend to be at higher risk for poor health outcomes.
Every Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) company has launched local initiatives to address health disparities and inequities. But there is no single answer to achieving health equity, and no one entity can achieve it alone.
Our platform, Creating a More Equitable System for the Health of America, outlines commonsense, consensus-based solutions that can meaningfully improve how care is delivered and experienced by people who have traditionally been underserved.
This is a roadmap and a call for collaborators for the journey. It recommends addressing four key pillars to achieving equity for all, with specific actions public and private stakeholders can take to achieve them. Read more
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