Can transparency fix American healthcare?

Will Bruhn is the co-founder of Restoring Medicine, and he wants to fix American healthcare.  How does he hope to accomplish such a daunting objective?  With transparency.

In a YouTube video he explains his perspective:

• In a well-functioning market, prices are consistent and informative.  In the American healthcare market, prices are chaotic and misleading.  For example, a sample found a 10x difference in price across hospitals for a single service, from $44k to $448k, without any correlation between price and quality.  Another study found a 39x difference in prices for a blood test a single metro area.
• The problem is that patients don't know how much they are paying.
  For both insured and self-pay patients, pricing is only divulged after services have been provided.  This would be like airlines only telling you how much a ticket will cost after you have already flown.
• Part of that problem is that insurance companies and intermediaries negotiate deals on pricing.  They consider these special prices proprietary and confidential, so healthcare practices are not supposed to reveal them unless required.
• How do we get out of this mess?  Price transparency.  We need more information about medical service pricing, especially 1) price and 2) quality.  Currently, Americans don't have easy access to either of those pieces of information.  Approximately 90% of services are not urgent, and therefore should be "shoppable".
• Transparent pricing would also help reward good actors, and punish bad actors.  Who doesn't want more good doctors and fewer bad ones?
• Will says, "We need government to get out of the way."  He points out that it's already happening with things like MRIs and laser eye surgery.

To learn more, check out Will's video on YouTube or the Restoring Medicine website.