# What Health Care Costs

The prices behind a medical bill are public: insurers and hospitals are required by federal law to publish them. They publish them in files almost nobody can read. This site reads them.

Web page, with the maps: https://medicalpricetransparency.netlify.app/

- [What insurers pay](insurers/index.md): negotiated prices by state for 58 insurers
- [What hospitals charge](hospitals/index.md): cash, list and negotiated prices at 3,699 hospitals
- [Ohio health care prices](ohio_transparency.html): insurers' and hospitals' prices at 1,204 named Ohio hospitals and surgery centers

## Two rules, two kinds of price

**Insurers** publish what they pay every provider in their networks, for every billing code. That shows how prices vary between doctors and places, but only for one insurer at a time.

**Hospitals** publish what they charge: a list price, a cash price, and the rate agreed with each insurer. That shows how the same insurer pays different hospitals, and how different insurers pay the same one.

**Neither is your bill.** What you owe depends on your deductible, copay and coinsurance. Use these prices to compare, not to predict.