Adam Hanft has some useful suggestions that would help all of us evaluate health care costs.

The industry could address this by employing this very notion of pricing transparency. How much of its premium income gets passed through to its members and their doctors and hospitals, versus how much is overhead and profit? Imagine how much better consumers would feel if they understood that HMOs exist to collect premiums from everyone in order to redistribute the money to those who need it. Essentially, it’s a major re-education campaign.
This is a model that the non-profit world has adopted, as scandals such as the United Way mess focused attention on what percent of a contribution finds its way to those who need it. Indeed, these metrics have become part of their messaging strategy.