NEWS RELEASE

New Jersey Hospital Cost Increases:

Disproportionate to Other Living Expenses

Edison, NJ, August 11, 2003 … In 1963, a private room at a Newark, New Jersey hospital was billed at $33 per day, and a general construction laborer’s hourly wage was $3.15.  In 2003, that one-day stay in the same New Jersey hospital room can cost up to 160 times as much.  The construction worker would have to earn more than $500 per hour to keep up with hospital costs.

“There is no explanation for this enormous rise in hospital medical/surgical room and board rates as compared to the general cost of living in New Jersey,” said Edward Geisler, Executive Director of Health Care Payers Coalition of New Jersey (HCPC).  “Naturally, costs across the board have risen significantly in forty years.  I find it unconscionable, however, that while the current $5.15 minimum wage is barely five times the $1.25 rate in 1963, the average cost of a five-day hospital stay in New Jersey can be nearly 200 times more than it was that year.”

Geisler draws other comparisons to the rise in hospital day rates.   “A four-bedroom home in northern New Jersey that cost $20,000 in 1963 is now worth $300,000 – perhaps a bit more,” he said.  “A mid-size American-made family sedan, sold for $3,000, has a $30,000 price tag today.  If housing and automobile prices had increased at the same rate as hospital costs, we would be looking at more than $3.2 million for that four-bedroom house and a sticker price of $480,000 for a family car.”

 In 1963 a well-baby visit to the pediatrician was billed at $5.  Today, that same pediatric visit, excluding immunizations, will be billed at $95.  “A doctor’s visit might be billed at nearly 20 times what it was in 1963, but this is still nowhere near the excessive increase we have experienced in hospital room and board rates,” Geisler said.  

The Health Care Payers Coalition of New Jersey is a not-for-profit consumer advocacy group and health care purchasing cooperative for self-insured health plans that cover more than 150,000 New Jerseyans.  Founded in 1992, HCPC promotes health care quality and emphasizes the empowerment of health care consumers by providing them with important information and education.  

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