Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the Health Service Board Meeting of march 14, 2024 and happy pie day to everybody. Would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance . I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Item 2, please. Thank you. Roll call starting with, president scott who is excused. Chair hao, present. Commissioner breslin is excused. Commissioner canning, present. Supervisor dorsey, present. Commissioner follansbee, present. Commissioner zvanski, present. Thank you. Thank you. We definitely have quorum. Item 3, please. Thank you. General Public Comment. An opportunity for members of the public to comment on any matter within the board jurisdiction on the agenda including requesting that the board place a matter on a future agenda item. Ill read our Public Comment instructions aloud. Remote viewing is available on sfgovtv and w
I gave them my Insurance Information and they came back and they said, we dont know. I would like to know how common that is and what is being done to try to let folks actually know what something costs. I might add, i had at the time a high deductible, so it was an important question about my outofpocket costs. The second question is Medicare Part d, when i noted it in the biography, mr. White was involved with in 2003, has a provision prohibiting the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies. And my question is, why is that still in the law . You want to take that one, ed . Why dont you start and ill do the first one. The second one real quick. The first one was, why cant they tell me what the price is . Like i said, forget about the email. Ask them what a price is and its like getting trade secrets out of cuba, right . Its next to impossible. What were seeing is that what the price is and what i owe are two different questions, right . So if i have coverage, i think
Question, and before you do that, identify yourself and your affiliation if you have one. Yes, sir . Hi. My name is steven spitz. I have two related questions on costs. One, i had an experience in the hospital where they said that i needed a certain common procedure, and i asked what the price was. I gave them my insurance information. And they came back and they said, we dont know. Id like to know how common that is, and what is being done to try to let folks actually know what something costs . I might add, i had at the time a high deductible so it was an important question about my outofpocket costs. The second question is Medicare Part b, when i noted it in the biography to mr. White, was involved with in 2003 has a provision prohibiting the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies. And my question is why is that bill in the law . Do you want to take that one, ed . Why dont you start. Ill do the first one, and the second one real quick. The first one was, why cant
As you can in stating your question, and before you do that, identify yourself and your affiliation if you have one. Yes, sir . Hi. My name is steven spitz. I have two related questions on costs. One, i had an experience in the hospital where they said that i needed a certain common procedure, and i asked what the price was. I gave them my insurance information. And they came back and they said, we dont know. Id like to know how common that is, and what is being done to try to let folks actually know what something costs . I might add, i had at the time a high deductible so it was an important question about my outofpocket costs. The second question is Medicare Part b, when i noted it in the biography to mr. White, was involved with in 2003 has a provision prohibiting the government from negotiating prices with the drug companies. And my question is why is that bill in the law . Do you want to take that one, ed . Why dont you start. Ill do the first one, and the second one real quick.
Test test test test captioning performed by vitac you dont know what else is coming down the pike. I dont want to oversell these tools. They are useful as a way to ballpark things and help consumers shop and compare. Its still a rough estimate because health care by its nature is an unknown in the year ahead. For those planned events and joel spoke about this the huge variation in price with no discernible difference in quality. We know, for example that neck mris will change from 230 to a tenth of that amount. There are certain instances where we can really come very far along in terms of helping people estimate costs and sort of partake in the favorable economics of smart decisionmaking. I had one more thing. Thats just about this whole issue when we talk about the tools for consumers of choice architecture design. Its how we present this information to consumers and theres been studies that consumers will go with the default so really have to think how were presenting the cost infor