Insurer’s files show big cost differences for same illnesses

Everyone knows that some Medicare patients run up much higher bills than other patients with similar conditions do. Now researchers have looked at the bills for non-elderly patients in UnitedHealthcare plans. The researchers analyzed the cost of care for patients facing asthma attacks, for example, and found that the cost ranged from less than $100 for the least-expensive cases up to $1,500 for the most expensive cases. Huge price gaps remained even when the researchers tried to adjust for differences in how sick the patients were.