Perfectly preserved Ice Age cave bear

found in Arctic Russia



The head and the full body of an Ice Age cave bear that was discovered on the Lyakhovsky Islands.
(North-Eastern Federal University)

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP. 15, 2020

Reindeer herders in a Russian Arctic archipelago have found an immaculately preserved carcass of an Ice Age cave bear, researchers said Monday.

The find — revealed as permafrost melts across vast areas of Siberia — was discovered on the Lyakhovsky Islands with its teeth and even its nose intact. Previously, scientists only had been able to discover the bones of cave bears that became extinct 15,000 years ago.

Scientists of the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, the premier center for research into woolly mammoths and other prehistoric species, hailed the find as groundbreaking.

In a statement issued by the university, researcher Lena Grigorieva emphasized that “this is the first and only find of its kind — a whole bear carcass with soft tissues.”

He added, “It is completely preserved, with all internal organs in place, including even its nose. This find is of great importance for the whole world.”

A preliminary analysis indicated that the adult bear lived 22,000 to 39,500 years ago.


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“It is necessary to carry out radiocarbon analysis to determine the precise age of the bear,” the university quoted researcher Maxim Cheprasov as saying.

The bear carcass was found by reindeer herders on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. It is the largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands, which are part of the New Siberian Islands archipelago that lies between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea.

At about the same time, a well-preserved carcass of a cave bear cub was also found in another area in Yakutia’s mainland, the university said. It didn’t describe its condition in detail but noted that scientists were hopeful of obtaining its DNA.

Recent years have seen major discoveries of mammoths, woolly rhinos, Ice Age foals, several puppies and cave lion cubs as the permafrost melts.

Paleontologists find evidence of new mass extinction 233 million years ago


Scientists have discovered evidence of a new mass extinction even that occurred at the end of the Triassic period. Photo by D. Bonadonna/MUSE, Trento

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Paleontologists have unearthed evidence of a new mass extinction that occurred during the Late Triassic, some 233 million years ago.

The extinction event, which scientists dubbed Carnian Pluvial Episode, was characterized by significant reductions in biodiversity and the loss of 33 percent of marine genera.

In a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers suggest the episode may have created the ecological space for the emergence of a variety of important modern plant and animal lineages -- including conifers, insects, dinosaurs, crocodiles, lizards, turtles and mammals.

Through analysis of both paleontological assemblages and geological evidence, researchers confirmed that biodiversity declines coincided with stark chemical changes in the ocean and atmosphere.

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Scientists suspect these changes were triggered by massive volcanic eruptions in what's now Alaska and British Columbia.

"The eruptions peaked in the Carnian," lead study author Jacopo Dal Corso said in a news release.

"I was studying the geochemical signature of the eruptions a few years ago and identified some massive effects on the atmosphere worldwide," said Dal Corso, a researcher with the China University of Geosciences at Wuhan. "The eruptions were so huge, they pumped vast amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and there were spikes of global warming."

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The latest research builds on the conclusions of earlier geological studies that showed the Late Triassic was characterized by upticks in not only temperature, but also humidity and precipitation.

The sudden shift to a warmer, wetter climate proved deadly for many genera and species, but it also encouraged the proliferation of plant life -- specifically, the expansion of modern conifer forests.

"The new floras probably provided slim pickings for the surviving herbivorous reptiles," said study co-author Mike Benton. "I had noted a floral switch and ecological catastrophe among the herbivores back in 1983 when I completed my PhD."

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"We now know that dinosaurs originated some 20 million years before this event, but they remained quite rare and unimportant until the Carnian Pluvial Episode hit," said Benton, professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol in Britain. "It was the sudden arid conditions after the humid episode that gave dinosaurs their chance."

In the wake of the extinction, modern-looking ecosystems appeared. The biodiversity losses were followed by the emergence of turtles, crocodiles, lizards and even the first mammals. In the oceans, corals appeared in large numbers, and modern groups of plankton rapidly multiplied.

"So far, paleontologists had identified five 'big' mass extinctions in the past 500 million years of the history of life," said Dal Corso. "Each of these had a profound effect on the evolution of the Earth and of life. We have identified another great extinction event, and it evidently had a major role in helping to reset life on land and in the oceans, marking the origins of modern ecosystems."

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The biggest fish in the sea are females, survey shows


Whale sharks are the world's biggest fish species, and a decade-long survey of the animals shows that the biggest whale sharks are female. 

Photo by Andre Rereuka/Australian Institute of Marine Science

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea, and the biggest whale sharks are females, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

For a decade, scientists measured the sizes and monitored the growth rates of male and female whale sharks, both in the ocean and in aquariums. The data showed males grow quickly earlier, but plateau just short of 30 feet.

Females, on the other hand, grow more slowly, but continue growing throughout adulthood, eventually surpassing males. Female whale sharks measured an average of 45 feet in length.

Between 2009 and 2019, researchers used a pair of underwater cameras to monitor the growth of 54 whales sharks along Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef. They used the unique spotting patterns on the backs of the whale sharks to identify and track individual fish.

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Over the decade-long study, the two cameras recorded thousands of whale shark measurements.

"It's basically two cameras set up on a frame that you push along when you're underwater," study co-author Brett Taylor said in a news release.

"It works the same way our eyes do -- so you can calibrate the two video recordings and get a very accurate measurement of the shark," said Taylor, a research fellow at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

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According to biologists, there is a simple explanation for the gargantuan size of the female whale sharks -- they birth a lot of pups.

"Only one pregnant whale shark had ever been found, and she had 300 young inside her," said lead study author Mark Meekan, fish biologist at AIMS. "That's a remarkable number, most sharks would only have somewhere between two and a dozen."

Whale sharks remain threatened by targeted fishing and ship strikes, and researchers suggest their findings point to the importance of robust conservation efforts.

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"If you're a very slow-growing animal and it takes you 30 years or more to get to maturity, the chances of disaster striking before you get a chance to breed is probably quite high," Meekan said.

The latest findings also explain why biologists regularly find large congregations of young male whale sharks in the tropics.

"They gather to exploit an abundance of food so they can maintain their fast growth rates," Meekan said.

Earlier this year, Meekan and other researchers published an updated strategy for estimating the age of whale sharks using vertebrate ring growth rates. Their findings showed whale sharks can live upwards of 50 years.

DNA data shows not all Vikings were Scandinavian

The Vikings were more genetically diverse than researchers thought, according to new DNA analysis. Photo by Pikist/CC

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- In the public imagination, the Vikings were closely-related clans of Scandinavians who marauded their way across Europe, but new genetic analysis paints a more complicated picture.

For the last six years, researchers in Britain and Denmark have been sequencing and analyzing DNA from more than 400 Viking skeletons recovered from dig sites across Europe and Greenland.

The data, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests Vikings were more genetically diverse than researchers thought.

"We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and going on raiding parties to fight kings across Europe, because this is what we see on television and read in books -- but genetically we have shown for the first time that it wasn't that kind of world," lead researcher Eske Willerslev said in a news release.

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"This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was -- no one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age," said Willerslev, a professor of evolutionary genetics at Cambridge University.

The so-called Viking Age begins with the earliest record of a Viking raid, dated to 800 A.D. The age lasted through the 1050s. During that time, Vikings raided monasteries and coastal cities, but also engaged in less violent activities, trading fur, tusks and seal fat.

Researchers knew the Vikings altered the political and economic landscape of Europe. In the 11th century, a Viking, Cnut the Great, ascended to the thrown of the North Sea Empire, comprising Denmark, England and Norway. But until now, researchers weren't really sure what the Vikings looked like, genetically speaking.

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"We found genetic differences between different Viking populations within Scandinavia which shows Viking groups in the region were far more isolated than previously believed," said Willerslev, director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Center at the University of Copenhagen.

"Our research even debunks the modern image of Vikings with blonde hair as many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia," he said.

The DNA recovered from Viking burial sites showed raiding parties from what's now Norway traveled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland, while groups from what's now Sweden traveled to Baltic countries.
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"We discovered that a Viking raiding party expedition included close family members as we discovered four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died the same day," said study co-author Ashot Margaryan.

"The rest of the occupants of the boat were genetically similar suggesting that they all likely came from a small town or village somewhere in Sweden," said Margaryan, an assistant professor of evolutionary genomics at the University of Copenhagen.

Researchers also found evidence that local people in Scotland, Celtic-speaking people known as Picts, adopted Viking identities and were buried as Vikings, but never genetically mixed with Scandinavians.

The DNA sequencing efforts showed Viking populations in Scandinavia continued to receive genetic inflows from throughout Europe during the Viking Age.

"Individuals with two genetically British parents who had Viking burials were found in Orkney [Scotland] and Norway," said Daniel Lawson, lead author from the University of Bristol in Britain. "This is a different side of the cultural relationship from Viking raiding and pillaging."

Ancient footprints in Saudi Arabia help track human migrations out of Africa



Researchers found ancient human and animal footprints in a lake deposit in the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia. Photo by Palaeodeserts Project


Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Paleontologists have discovered a diverse assemblage of 120,000-year-old human and animal footprints in an ancient lake deposit in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert, offering new insights into the trajectories of human migrations out of Africa, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

A mounting body of evidence, compiled and published over the last two decades, has upended early theories that humans migrated out of Africa in one or two giant waves.

"As more and more fossils are discovered, it seems that humans repeatedly dispersed out of Africa and did so much earlier than previously thought," study co-author Mathew John Stewart told UPI in an email.

"Precisely when, how often and under what conditions remain open questions," said Stewart, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany.

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For answers to these questions, researchers have mostly looked to Africa and Eurasia, ignoring the Arabian Peninsula. Though it neighbors both Africa and Asia, evidence of human occupation in the region is scant.

"The area today is a hyper-arid desert, characterized by very little rainfall and large, expansive sand dunes," Stewart said. "The conditions are not very amenable to the preservation of material and sediments. Significant erosion of sediments and the subsequent destruction of material, such as fossil remains, is unfortunately common."

Paleoclimate data suggests that Arabia wasn't always as dry as it was today, and a scattering of fossil discoveries has confirmed that humans were able to make forays into the Arabian interior when shifts in climate turned the peninsula's deserts into grassland.

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The ancient footprints found in the Nefud Desert, fossilized in an ancient lake deposit known as 'Alathar' -- Arabic for "the trace" -- suggests humans made one of those forays roughly 120,000 years ago.

"The age of the footprints are consistent with Homo sapiens fossils in the Levant, and suggests that there were multiple routes that humans took upon expanding beyond Africa," study co-author Richard Clark-Wilson told UPI in an email.

"There is earlier evidence for our species moving into the Mediterranean environment of the Levant and southern Greece, but this is the earliest evidence of our species moving into a semi-arid grassland as Arabia would have been," said Clark-Wilson, a postgraduate research student at Royal Holloway in Britain.

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In addition to human footprints, researchers uncovered footprints left by elephants, horses and hippos, suggesting Homo sapiens weren't the only species drawn to the open grasslands and water resources of northern Arabia. Research suggests it's possible humans were following animals when they first moved into the region.

"Whats exciting about the animal footprints is that it closely ties human and animal movements around lakes in northern Arabia," Stewart said. "Unlike most other records, footprints provide very high-resolution information, on the order of hours or days. Also, the animal footprints provide information on what the environment and ecology was like when these people were moving through the landscape."

While the discovery of ancient footprints in Arabia suggests human movements out of Africa extended eastward into northern Arabia, Stewart said plenty of questions remain unanswered.

"Precisely what happened to these people during the more arid periods? How long did they occupy the Arabian interior? Where did they go?"

Poll: Migrants more vulnerable than natives in developed nations

A displaced girl is seen at a temporary shelter in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 29. Friday's survey showed that Afghanistan has the greatest share of citizens in the "high vulnerability" category. File Photo by Hedayatullah Amid/EPA-EFE

Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Migrants in the developed world are more likely to face high vulnerability than native residents due to multiple factors, according to a Gallup survey Friday.

The poll, part of Gallup's Basic Needs Vulnerability Index, said migrants and natives in developed countries face the same health threats in the COVID-19 era -- but migrants have been particularly vulnerable due to working and living conditions and no access to medical care

The vulnerability index gauges potential exposure to risk from economic and other types of challenges, like a pandemic. The index measures a population's ability to afford food and shelter and their access to personal safety nets.

According to the survey, 36% of migrants in developed economies were found to be in either "high vulnerability" or "moderate vulnerability" situations compared to just 24% of natives. In underdeveloped economies, the split was 65% to 59%, respectively.

Gallup acknowledged that persons in "high vulnerability" situations include those who struggled over the past year to afford food or shelter and didn't have family or friends who could help. The moderately vulnerable faced the same situation, except they had some social support.

The survey also noted that low-income migrants in some nations have accounted for a high percentage of coronavirus cases.

"With an estimated 37 million people thrown into extreme poverty since the start of the pandemic, the ranks of the world's most vulnerable are likely only to grow before the pandemic runs its course," Gallup wrote. "These vulnerable populations will continue to bear a disproportionate burden from the pandemic."

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The survey said 5% of the U.S. population fell into the "high vulnerability" category and a quarter faced "moderate vulnerability."

Afghanistan has the highest share of its population considered "highly vulnerable" (50%) -- while Britain, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Iceland and Switzerland have the lowest (1%).

Gallup polled more than 1,000 adults in 142 nations for the survey, which has a margin of error between 1.5 and 5.4 points.

Bushmeat trade changes hint at erosion of cultural taboos in West Africa


Despite religious taboos against the consumption of pigs and monkeys in the Muslim-dominated regions of West Africa, researchers have found evidence of increased demand for warthogs and green monkeys at bushmeat markets in rural Guinea. Photo by Charles Sharp/Wikimedia Commons

Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Researchers have identified a shift in the bushmeat trade in and around Niger National Park in Guinea, West Africa.

New survey data, published Friday in the journal Oryx, revealed in an uptick in the trade of several species that forage on local crops, including the green monkey, Chlorocebus sabaeus, and warthog, Phacochoerus africanus.

The discovery suggests economic realities have eroded cultural taboos against the killing and consumption of monkeys and wild pigs in West Africa, a predominantly Muslim region.

Researchers were able to identify fluctuations in the bushmeat, or wildmeat, trade by comparing more recent market survey data, collected between 2011 and 2017, with data collected during the 1990s and between 2001 and 2011.

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"No other study to our knowledge has really explored temporal changes when it comes to the wild meat trade, and our study clearly highlights key shifts in this regard," lead study author Tatyana Humle, professor of ecology and conservation at the University of Kent in Britain, told UPI.

To collect accurate data, Humle said it's important for researchers to build trusting relationships with wildmeat vendors and help them understand the purpose of the study. It's also important for researchers not to interfere in market activities.

During regular visits to local markets, Humle's research team recorded where wildmeat was being sold, as well as what types of wildmeat -- at the species level, whenever possible -- was available for sale.

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The market data comparison showed that fluctuations in Guinea's wildmeat trade are being largely driven by increases in rural demand. Bushmeat trade patterns have remained fairly stable in the city of Faranah over the last few decades.

"In Guinea, like many other countries in the region, rural people in particular depend heavily on wildmeat for protein consumption and income," Humle said. "It is hence critical to understand what is going on in order to more effectively align conservation actions with the livelihoods challenges faced by people in these localities."

Researchers found small mammals dominate the bushmeat trade in Guinea, especially species that feed on local crops. With a single kill, farmers can both protect their crops and make some extra money.

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"Increased trade in crop-foraging wildlife species is potentially a trend that we expect to see elsewhere as both subsistence and commercial agricultural activities and other land use conversion practices are spreading across landscapes, encroaching into habitats utilized by wildlife," Humle said.

The wildmeat trade presents a variety of risks, including an increased risk of zoonoses, diseases that jump between wildlife and both people and livestock.

"The international trade in wildlife is one of the major threats to biodiversity," Humle said.

The wildmeat trade can also lead to local extinctions and significant biodiversity losses, resulting in lost ecological services, such as pollination and seed-dispersal of critical fruit trees.

Researchers hope their market surveys can help conservationists develop more effective strategies to curb the growth of the wildmeat trade.

"Research is key to combat the growth of the wildmeat trade, as without understanding the patterns and drivers we cannot identify in concert with the people involved in this activity effective solutions to tackle the trade," Humle said.

"It is also vital that research findings inform policy and community development and conservation actions," she said. "Law enforcement is futile on its own, unless drivers are understood and addressed adequately."

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Shiite fears, demands jeopardize French initiative to save Lebanon


An anti-government protester carries a national flag as she shouts slogans in front of the Lebanese army soldiers during a protest on the road leading to the presidential palace in Baabda, east Beirut, Lebanon, last Saturday. Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Internal disputes, Shiite demands and fears -- fueled by new U.S. sanctions on two former officials -- and the U.S.-Iran rivalry are obstructing French-led efforts to form a new government aimed at saving Lebanon from a deep economic crisis.

Lebanese rival sectarian factions, including Hezbollah, failed to honor commitments to French President Emmanuel Macron to form a cabinet of specialist ministers by a Tuesday deadline.

Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib, a Sunni Muslim, has been quietly trying to put together a new government since he was named Aug. 31. His efforts to exclude traditional political leaders, avoid usual consultations and switch control of ministries have particularly annoyed the powerful Shiite parties, the Amal movement led by House Speaker Nabih Berri and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

U.S. sanctions imposed last week against Berri's top aide, former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and former Transport Minister Yusuf Fenianos for engaging in corruption and enabling Hezbollah angered both groups, prompting their insistence on taking back the Finance Ministry and naming the Shiite ministers in the new government.

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"No one wishes a confrontation and an escalation is in no one's interest," Kassim Kassir, a political analyst and expert on Islamic movements, told UPI. "But no one, too, can impose his conditions. No one would accept that."

Kassir said all Macron wants is for Lebanon to form a cabinet that would restore confidence in the country and start implementing urgent reforms. But former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and a group of former heads of government, who selected Adib, took advantage of the French initiative "to run the country and exclude the other political parties."

"The new cabinet cannot be formed without the approval of the parties," he said, referring to Shiite groups, as well as the Christian Free Patriotic Movement headed by Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law of President Michel Aoun.

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Kassir acknowledged that new U.S. sanctions increased worries for Berri and Hezbollah: "Berri felt that he was targeted. It was like a warning to him."

France said Wednesday, after the deadline had passed, that "it is not yet too late" for Lebanese officials to "assume their responsibilities and finally act in the sole interest of Lebanon" by allowing Adib to form a government that reflects the "seriousness of the situation," according to a statement by Macron's office.

A new deadline has been set for Sunday.

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Macron's initiative is the last chance to save Lebanon, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt wrote on Twitter.

The country is on the verge of collapse as a result of years of political disputes, corruption and economic mismanagement.

"It seems that some did not understand or do not want to understand that the French initiative is the last opportunity to save Lebanon and prevent its disappearance, as the (French) foreign minister said clearly," Jumblatt wrote.

Amin Kammourieh, a journalist and independent political analyst, told UPI the fresh U.S. sanctions came "to make matters worse as they reached Berri" and so the Shiites felt that they are targeted. "They won't accept to be eliminated from political life...They control the country and are well-armed and thus will not give in.

"If they are to end up in prison," he said, because of their years of engagement in corruption, "they will let the country burn."

A new government and the speedy adoption of reforms are needed to unblock international support and persuade the International Monetary Fund to finance a rescue plan, the beginning of a long recovery process.

But allowing the Shiite and other parties to name their ministers to the new government would mean a duplication of the previous cabinets, run by the same politicians responsible for the country's deterioration.

Experts say the Shiite parties are playing at the edge of the abyss and Berri might paint himself into a corner. International pressures could intensify, making the situation very complicated and dangerous.

Will there be a compromise to satisfy the Shiites or more sanctions targeting them?

The United States and France are showing patience, but if they realize that their efforts are leading nowhere, they may impose more sanctions on Lebanese officials and wait for them to come to them.

Hezbollah, Amal and their patron Iran can't bear the responsibility of letting Lebanon collapse. It is also not in the interests of the United States and France to see the tiny country falling apart.

If Lebanon plunges into chaos, Paris fears an influx of Lebanon's 1.5 million Syrian refugees to Europe while Washington is more concerned about Israel's security and reactivation of Islamic State sleeper cells.

The United States and France also differ over how to deal with Hezbollah. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned this week that the Lebanese crisis cannot be resolved without tackling the issue of Hezbollah's arms.

On Thursday, the U.S. treasury blacklisted a senior Hezbollah Executive Council official identified as Sultan Khalifah As'ad and two Lebanon-based companies, Arch Consulting and Meamar Construction, accused of being linked to the Iran-backed Shiite group.

Report: Trump policies could add 1.8B gigatons of greenhouse gases


Environmental rule changes under the administration of President Donald Trump, shown speaking at the White House Thursday, could result in 1.8 gigatons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by 2035, a new report released Thursday said.

Sept. 18 (UPI) -- The Trump administration's unraveling of Obama-era environmental rules could lead to the release of an additional 1.8 billion gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, according to a new examination released Thursday by the Rhodium Group.

The independent research firm said the extra release of the carbon dioxide is equivalent to one-third of all greenhouse emissions pumped into the atmosphere in 2019 and could speed up global warming.

"While some of these moves remain mired in legal uncertainty, the Trump administration has successfully unraveled the majority of Obama-era climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan, fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles, and efforts to curb potent greenhouse gases from refrigerants and air conditioning."

The White House in August eased regulations preventing methane leakage from oil and gas facilities, the firm said.

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The Trump administration had been fighting to prevent California from creating its own emissions standards, which would be stricter than once proposed by the White House.

Other possible greenhouse contributions could come from methane emissions from the oil and gas industry and coal-fired power plants that have found some new life under Trump.

"Having promised to cut environmental regulation on the campaign trail, President Trump wasted no time once in office," the report said. "In March 2017, Trump signed an executive order directing then-Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt to repeal and replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP), former President Obama's signature climate policy."

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The report said Trump doubled down on his environmental policy by taking the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord in 2017.

Study: Private insurers pay 2 1/2 times what Medicare does for hospital services

ONLY INSURERS WANT PRIVATISED HEALTHCARE



A RAND analysis says that private insurers pay prices well above those charged to Medicare for hospital services. Photo by Thomas Breher/Pixabay

Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Private insurers paid roughly 2.5 times what Medicare paid for hospital-based care in 2018, an analysis released Friday by the RAND Corp. found.

Hospitals charged private insurers, on average, rates that were 247% of those assessed Medicare beneficiaries, the data showed.

However, in several states -- Alaska, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia -- the figure was as high as 325%.

Some states -- Arkansas, Michigan and Rhode Island -- had relative costs under 200% of those paid by Medicare, according to analysts.

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"This analysis provides the most-detailed picture ever of what privately insured individuals pay for hospital-based care relative to what the government pays for people insured through Medicare," analysis co-author Christopher Whaley said in a statement.

"Employers can use the information in this report to ... make judgments about appropriate pricing," said Whaley, a RAND policy researcher.

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A large portion of private health insurance contracting for hospitals is on a discounted-charge basis, in which the insurer agrees to pay a percentage of billed charges.

Medicare, however, issues a fee schedule that determines the amount it will pay for each service, with adjustments for inflation, hospital location, the severity of a patient's illness and other factors.

The RAND analysis, which includes information from more than half of the nation's community hospitals, is a broad-based study of amounts paid by private health plans to hospitals, using information from 49 states and Washington, D.C.

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Maryland was excluded because it has a system in place where the privately insured and Medicare recipients pay the same, RAND said.

Researchers also found found "a steady increase" in hospital prices charged to private insurers, from 224% of Medicare rates in 2016 to 230% in 2017, RAND analysts said.

Overall, 3,112 hospitals nationwide billed private insurers $33.8 billion in 2018, including approximately 750,000 claims for inpatient stays and 40.2 million claims for outpatient services.

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If employers and health plans participating in the study had paid hospitals using Medicare's payment formulas, they would have spent nearly $20 billion less, a potential savings of 58%, the researchers said.

Spending on hospital services accounts for approximately 44% of total personal healthcare spending for those with private insurance.

"The rising gap between public and private hospital prices is a cause for concern and raises questions about the efficiency of the employer market," Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said in a statement. The foundation funded the analysis.

"The goal of this work is to arm employers with data so they can negotiate more effectively. Curbing excessive spending on employer health insurance is in the public interest," Hempstead said.

The RAND researchers analyzed healthcare claims obtained from self-insured employers, six state all-payer claims databases and records from health insurance plans that chose to participate.

For each private claim, researchers repriced the service using Medicare's grouping and pricing formulas, the researchers said.

A detailed list of both relative and standardized prices for each hospital, identified by name and Medicare provider number, is included in the report's supplemental material, which also contains Hospital Compare star ratings -- a ranking system maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- for those hospitals.

No relationship existed between prices and two widely recognized metrics of quality and patient safety, the data showed.

"In the case of specific high-priced hospitals, there may be justification for the unusually high prices, such as offering specialized services or a well-deserved reputation for higher-quality care," RAND analyst Whaley said.

"However, if two hospitals have similar quality, then any difference in prices may be harder to justify.


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