A historical perspective: In 1984 my first task as the policy coordinator for the State DHCS was to convince then Assembly Health Committee Chair Curtis Tucker, via his chief consultant Paul Press, to introduce a bill that would require hospitals to post the “charges” of some common procedures, like deliveries, appendectomies, etc. next to their Hill-Burton notice. Tucker did introduce such a bill – only to use it to leverage concessions from the hospital industry. That was some 30 years ago. Marginal real progress has been made with data since then.

McLoed is correct; there are many tangential variables that go into cost/pricing. I offered a perspective at the link below as far as Medi-Cal hospital rates are concerned. Johnson is also correct; there is plethora of data available. Sadly such data are not consumer centric; one has to mine/cut/paste/sort to come with some proxies at best. California’s Exchange is attempting to offer such a menu albeit it is limited in its scope.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Discrepancies-in-MediCal-hospital-inpatient-4036536.S.66289130?qid=ea9373ec-e236-4529-9394-f1c9ffa6061f&trk=group_most_recent_rich-0-b-ttl&goback=%2Egmr_4036536