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Health care prices have been spiraling skyward in recent years but, like many a hospital system, Portland-based Legacy Health says it’s got to raise them even more.
Health insurer Regence BlueCross BlueShield, for example, says two years after a contract dispute over the exact same issue that Legacy is asking for a pay bump of 22% at its hospitals and clinics over the next two years.
There is, of course, a bigger picture here. The U.S. spends way more on health care per person than peer nations—a fact analysts tend to attribute to, among other things, the U.S. system’s ridiculously fragmented nature, and the fact that health insurance participation here is optional.
And costs have surged in recent years in particular, to more than $14,000 annually per year per person in the U.S, according to health research group KFF, with no signs of slowing. Some of this cost shows up in your health insurance premium and out-of-pocket pay when you see the doctor or pick up medicine, but much of it is funded through your taxes or money employers spends on employee health insurance instead of say, wages.
Legacy, for its part, says it needs to raise prices still further because of a massive 47% rise in its own costs since 2021, owing to inflation, higher supply costs, and a health care workforce shortage. “We rely on our partners, like Regence, to carry their fair share of those increases,” a Legacy spokesperson says.
Regence, however, is balking—prompting what has become a very common public rhetorical showdown in which legions of everyday people get notices informing them they might face bigger out-of-network bills if an accord is not reached soon.
A Regence spokesperson says the insurer spends nearly 90 cents of every premium dollar directly on members’ health care, which “means if Regence agreed to Legacy’s ask, it’d directly increase health care costs for local businesses and consumers who receive care at Legacy facilities by 22%.”
The deadline here is March 31, at which point some Legacy services will cost more for the Portland area’s many Regence members, even as negotiations drag on.
Regence, meanwhile, continues to wage a separate contract battle with Oregon Health & Science University, whose own inflationary demands, the insurer notes, could lead to “double-digit” price increases for consumers.
