Why Norway hospital prices are lower
Norway 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.
National DRG (ISF) + regional budgets
How it works
Taxes fund regional health authorities. Hospitals are paid on a national DRG tariff (ISF) inside a budget. The invoice is a public price. There is no job-plan middleman writing a second rate at each tower.
Why it holds
One buyer. Oil-rich and still about 48¢. The expensive 5% still get the ICU and the oncology year. They get a Norwegian night, not a US commercial night. Walking away from ‘the network’ is not a hospital strategy — the region is the network.
The invoices
See iFHP, RAND hospitals, Papanicolas.