16 pages. Excerpt: "Potential aggregate savings could reach $9.4 billion if all employers adopted reference pricing for the health care services examined in this paper. The $9.4 billion represents 1.6 percent of all spending on health care services among the 156 million people under age 65 with employment-based health benefits in 2010. Savings from reference pricing materializes through the combination of [1] patients choosing providers at the reference price, [2] patients paying the difference between the reference price and the allowed charge through cost sharing, and [3] providers reducing their prices to the reference price. Any increase in prices among providers below the reference price would reduce the potential for savings."

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