Healthcare Cost Research Sources

This is a guide to sources you can check yourself. It does not present an original survey or claim that USHealthCosts has independently measured national price trends.

Question: What would a health plan cost me?

Start with HealthCare.gov plan previews or your state marketplace. Use the same coverage year and household information for each comparison. A gross premium and a premium after assistance are different amounts; record which one you are comparing.

Question: Where can I find plan-level data?

CMS Exchange Public Use Files include plan and rate information with documentation. Before combining files, check the year, geographic coverage, identifiers, and field definitions. A statewide summary is not necessarily the price available in your county.

Question: How can I investigate hospital prices?

CMS hospital price transparency guidance explains public hospital pricing information. Identify the exact service and ask the facility what its estimate includes. A cash price and a negotiated insurance amount answer different questions.

A comparison record you can reproduce

1. Save the source URL, file name, coverage year, and access date.
2. Record the service or plan identifier, location, and payment basis.
3. State what is excluded, such as professional charges or separate drug benefits.
4. Keep the original figures alongside any calculations; do not present unmatched amounts as a market average.

Turn plan documents into a worksheet

The annual plan comparison works with your own inputs and exports its assumptions. It helps examine how a premium tradeoff changes under a care-spending scenario without claiming access to live insurance prices.

Read our methodology and data limitations before using the site's illustrative state ranges.