This is not that bad because he ended with a negotiated rate and paid 1,000 or so. I’ve seen much worse One cause is political. One place I worked govt would only pay a % of the billable rate - this was so politically they could say program was saving money. So the ‘rack’ rate went through the roof. The irony? We’d have preferred to charge less to cash payors (this was a nonprofit) because they were much less painful…
When I'm headed to the ER, I'm looking for immediate medical attention. I don't want to be shopping around for hidden hospital price estimates, verifying network coverage and deciding if I should Uber, ambulance or drive while I'm half dead. After all that we still got slapped with a $30k bill for half an hour. Cleared the HDHP deductible real fast. Thanks WEC Hospital for the wonderful hours long wait to pay you jacked up prices.
When we had our first kid, we had to repeatedly call the hospital and insurance to make sure it's within network and that the midwives were going to be covered. Then we got slapped with a $15k bill because one of the nurses is outsourced and not within network. After 5 separate hour long conversations on the phone with Aetna we finally managed to get the clinic to lower the bill to $3000 which Aetna then covered. And then 10 days later I received a $15k bill payment reminder.
I think the whole healthcare discussion in the US seems way too distracted with figuring out how to refactor a code base written by clowns, instead of just building a new system ground up. With 50 different states to pander to, I guess that's the logical result.
Pretty glad I left the US, my mind is now cleared of lots of unnecessary baggage.