California state officials and Consumer Reports magazine report very wide differences in  the costs of common procedures between the northern and southern parts of the state, with patients in the north  generally paying a lot more than ones in the south.

“Northern California shoppers are in for some unhappiness and some surprise,” Dr. R. Adams Dudley, director of the UC San Francisco Center for Healthcare Value and a professor of medicine and health policy, told The Sacramento Bee. “They live in an expensive part of the state, health-care-wise.”

The Bee reported that when “new 2016 rates for Covered California health care plans were announced, Northern California consumers faced additional sticker shock: Those who stay with their existing plan can expect their average premiums to jump 7 percent, compared with only 1.8 percent in Southern California. (Those rates cover individuals who purchase health care under the Affordable Care Act, not those with employer-sponsored health benefits.)”

The Bee went on:

“What accounts for the price difference between north and south? It’s simple, some experts say: lack of competition. Northern California tends to be dominated by larger hospital chains such as Sutter Health and Dignity Health, while Southern California has smaller hospital alliances and more independent doctor groups.”

“But blaming hospitals for high-priced healthcare is unfair, said Jan Emerson-Shea, vice president of external affairs for the California Hospital Association, based in Sacramento. Hospitals face economic pressures of all sorts, from spending billions on mandatory seismic retrofits to unionized labor contracts to costly medical technology, she said. And those costs have to be absorbed into their billing rates, ” she told the paper.