From SF Chronicle Today re Healthcare

Front page story in Sunday, February 21 SF Chronicle:  "Health Care:  Soaring costs laid to growing power of medical cartels" by Carolyn Lochhead and Victoria Colliver.  

***NOTE: No link to this story is available from the SF Chronicle or anywhere else online because, according to one of the two reporters who wrote this story, Carolyn Lochhead, who says, when I asked her about it:  "We're not giving away our content. There's a 48 hour wait".  Companion story, same paper, same day:  "Secrecy veils health care pricing", by Carolyn Lochhead.  Again, no link online to this story on SF GATE).

excerpts from today's SF Chronicle front page story:  

"Washington--The planned spike in health insurance rates by Anthem Blue Cross in California is just the tip of a Titanic-size iceberg of exorbitant price increases, secret pricing and consolidation not only by insurers-- but by hospitals, doctors, and medical device makers that send the bills to the insurers.... The nation is fast being bankrupted by a medical money machine that costs $2.5 trillion a year and takes more than $1 of every $6 that Americans earn...  While the Anthem case has raised a political storm, the underlying surge in costs gets far less scrutiny.  But each sector of the health industry points fingers at the other for driving up prices and all are raking in money....  Prices are almost impossible to obtain because of "confidentiality agreements... among [those]....who do not want their markups exposed to competition or public scrutiny.... Consumers have almost no control over costs... but they foot the bill in skyrocketing premiums, deductibles, and co-pays...  What has received far less scrutiny is the collusion operating underneath this system...  A report last month by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley found extensive evidence of anti-competitive behavior among providers, including huge price disparities that bear no relation to anything except market power.  Special pricing pacts and other forms of collusive behavior were 'pervasive' the report said....  Insurers leap on this argument blaming rising provideer charges... for higher premiums.  But they do little to fight them.   Exempt from anti-trust laws, insurers have been rapidly consolidating and often dominate local regions, giving them the power to pass on price increases to consumers and businesses....".