Report: Healthcare costs show wide variance across US states

A new report released by the Health Care Cost Institute has shown that costs for healthcare have extremely wide variances from state to state. The report has shown that there is very little consistency, with some States paying almost twice as much for similar coverage and treatment as others.

The key findings from this report studied prices paid by people with private health insurance.

“Prices for medical services varied more than threefold in certain instances,” the team wrote in the report, which was published in the journal Health Affairs.

High prices seem to be a symptom of a shortage. Prices overall in Alaska are high, with medical costs there are 2.6 times the national average. Medical costs in Florida are just 79 percent of the average.

“There is a big shortage of child psychologists in this country. If you are a single child psychologist somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, you are able to charge a high price” HCCI executive director David Newman told NBC News.

The report used the health cost website Guroo to gather research date. “Aetna, Humana and United give us all of their paid claims data. It amounts to data on about 50 million Americans from 2007 forward,” Newman said.

More than 60 percent of Americans are covered by private health insurance, usually through an employer. About 32 percent have government health insurance of some kind, such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Medical costs can be paid by private insurance companies, directly by employers, by government-funded systems such as Medicare or Medicaid, and directly by patients. Hospitals typically negotiate different rates with different payers.

Americans now spend $9,523 per person a year on medical expenses. This by far the most highest spend among developed countries.