Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insurance companies. Everything is controlled by insurance companies. You can’t do anything unless it’s exactly how insurance wants and only for what insurance will pay. It limits everything, including how every profession can be compensated simply because you can’t easily hire somebody for more than what insurance will pay for their services. You can, but the funds have to come from somewhere.
Insurance is the only industry where they agree to pay for something (in this case, "medical care"), but then after service has been rendered can decide to pay less, or not pay at all, or stop paying that provider altogether, etc. This combined with hospitals being run by non-physicians*, and people thinking being able to Google and read WebMD qualifies them to argue with their doctor about treatment plans**, healthc…
This is precisely why I think we will never be able to effectively treat healthcare as a "free market" with tools like HSAs, posted price sheet, etc. The end user can never know the true cost of their procedure until it's long over (sometimes years later) and often don't get to choose at all.