Home Alone 2 room service and healthcare inflation

"Kevin! You spent $967 dollars on room service!"

Remember the end of Home Alone 2? When Kevin's dad gets the multipage room service bill for $967.34? Seems like a bargain these days!

(Eloise Tea at The Plaza is ~$600 for a family of four these days.)

In today's dollars, Kevin would have spent $2,184 on his ice cream, pizza, etc.

If that $967.34 was spent on medical care instead of room service in 1992, it would be $2,867.14!

Everything got more expensive, but healthcare got expensiver! (SIC)

In that same time, every piece of technology we've bought outside of a medical environment has gotten faster, lighter, better, and cheaper. Flat screen tv's were thousands of dollars twenty years ago and now you can score one for pennies on the dollar.

The same is true for cosmetic surgery and LASIK. Procedures that patients pay out of pocket for (and therefore ask for firm prices BEFORE they purchase), have gotten better and cheaper over the years.

We need price transparency and we need it now. We have the rules for hospitals and health plans, but we need it for the prescription drug supply chain (PBMs, PSAOs, GPOs).

There's no good faith reason for hiding prices from patients.