AHA blog: Four reasons Medicare is an inadequate benchmark for commercial health plans

Researchers are taking an “off-base” approach to setting benchmarks for commercial insurance rates, and in the process wrongly painting hospitals as the source of the health care system’s problem, according to a new blog by Benjamin Finder, AHA’s director of policy research and analysis. The blog cites four prominent reasons why benchmarking against Medicare rates is misguided, arguing that policymakers should instead strengthen Medicare payment rates rather than hold them up as the gold standard.