"Healthcare costs what it costs"? Has playing on an economy server taught you nothing about capitalism? The whole point of capitalism is to set your price as high as you can get away with.
As a not-minor who has paid way too many of these bills, I can assure you that the whole pricing scheme is a complete mystery until nearly a month after you receive care, and a bill arrives in the mail. It's rather difficult to make informed decisions that way.
It's an elaborate shell game:
- Hospitals have their ala carte prices, which are insanely ridiculous. That's what they bill to the insurance company, or to uninsured individuals. Uninsured have no idea that they're supposed to negotiate at this point.
- Insurance companies receive the ala carte bills, and have a good laugh. Then they tell the hospitals what price they'll really accept, based on well-established contracts. Every insurer has a different contract. Doctors and hospitals waste tons of time every year with this nonsense.
- Insurance companies then feed the bill through their ridiculously complicated formulas involving co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, and what they just don't feel like covering. These rules are all in place to make sure that no matter what happens to you, they'll still make money off of you.
- Insurance company then decides what portion of the contract price they'll pay, and stick you with the rest.
I've even had the delightful experience of getting four different bills from four different companies for a single hospital visit. There are different bills for facilities, for diagnostics, for the doctor, etc. Good luck figuring that one out.
Every year the monthly premiums for insurance go up, and the benefits go down. This process has been playing out long before Obamacare.
It's currently estimated that a third of all healthcare spending in the US goes to support the medical billing industry. From a consumer perspective, it's entirely waste. Yay capitalism.
