Lessons for Higher Ed from Health Care
The New York Times has been running a terrific series helping to illustrate why costs of healthcare in this country are so incredibly out of control. Today's story is masterful in the way it breaks down the cost of an artificial hip replacement in the U.S. versus Belgium. The cost in the U.S. is over $78,000, while in Belgium it is $13,660. The main cost differences lie in variation in the surgeon's fee (about 16 times higher in the U.S.), the implant cost (more than 8 times higher in the U.S.) and the hospital room cost (about 8 times higher on a per-night basis). These differences helped direct the reporters towards a story that unpacks the reasons for variation in impact and hospital costs, while unfortunately saying little about the differences in surgeon's fees. Imagine what we could learn from similar analyses of the costs of higher education in this country versus in others. Time and again I hear that costs of education students at the postsecondary level are ...