Regions of the country that spend less through the Medicare program do not necessarily have lower healthcare costs as a whole, upending conventional wisdom about healthcare spending patterns. The Healthcare Pricing Project has concluded that cities such as Grand Junction, Colorado, which had the third-lowest Medicare spending in the U.S., had the ninth-highest inpatient prices nationally. "Our work suggests that vigorous antitrust enforcement is important and that hospital prices could be made more transparent," the study said. "There is evidence that higher deductibles and cost sharing alone will not likely encourage shopping by patients." Read the full article at FierceHealthPayer