Why Austria hospital prices are lower
Austria sets one hospital price — a DRG, a tariff, or a budget. The hospital takes it. It cannot charge each plan a different secret multiple. In the US the must-have hospital extracts 2–3× Medicare from job plans that cannot walk. The insurer passes that through. It does not set it.
LKF / DRG, not chargemaster
How it works
Social-insurance funds pay hospitals on a DRG-style catalog (LKF) inside state budgets. Physician fees are scheduled. An expensive year is a public rate, not a chargemaster production.
Why it holds
The unit of payment is the stay, posted. There is no 100-contract stack. The 5% still exist — cardiovascular, cancer, joints, old age. The invoice does not.
The invoices
SKUUnited StatesAustria
Hospital unit vs US commercialmodeled$1.0040¢
Bypass at that indexmodeled$89,094~$36,000
See iFHP, RAND hospitals, Papanicolas.