Wisconsin’s healthcare costs are the fourth highest in the country. Advocates of recent legislation claim price transparency will help reduce these costs by introducing necessary competition to the industry. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business organization, is backing the legislation, sharing that skyrocketing healthcare costs are a chief concern of many Wisconsin employers.
“Healthcare is literally the only service in our economy where consumers have no ability to make choices based on cost because they have no idea how much anything in the system costs,” WMC’s Scott Manley shared in the interview.
Price transparency will allow consumers of healthcare to act like consumers, giving them the power of choice, Manley claims. Adding competition to the marketplace will demand providers lower their prices.
“Every dollar that an employer has to spend on healthcare coverage on their employees is a dollar that they can’t use to raise that employee’s wages,” Manley continued “If we can enact reforms like this, that is going to free up money for wage increases. These reforms, although they will be good for employers, they’ll be even better for employees.”
