WellPoint Arm Develops Price Tool

General Motors Corp. is sponsoring an effort to create a new health care cost comparison system.

General Motors, Detroit, is backing a team at Anthem National Accounts, a unit of WellPoint Inc., Indianapolis, that is developing a procedure cost comparison tool that will give consumers access to price data for hospitals in the Dayton, Ohio, area.

Instead of simply giving the price of a specific procedure at a specific hospital, the tool will show how much a typical patient might spend at a hospital on all of the lab tests, recovery room time and other services related to a major procedure, Anthem says.