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This was my biggest issue with Obamacare. It did nothing to increase price transparency. More broadly, I think the discussion needs to move away form health "i

• Retric 10y ago
  The insurance industry has a perverse incentive to increase systemic prices. If they make say 10% profit due to competion, then ~10% of healthcare spending paid for by insurance = their profit. Thus, their profit increases as prices rise. Sure, they want to tamp down on specific bills, but things like restricting the supply of doctors helps pad their bottom line. Consider, A 1% chance of a problem is reason to buy insurance. However, if the bill is always ~2,000$ then some people will pay for it, but it's skippable (2$/mo). If it's 20,000k then more people would pay for it and pay more money (20$/mo). If it's 200,000k then it's less affordable (~200$/month) but even if you only get 1/2 the population that's still more profitable. It's only when prices get to 1% of 2,000,000$ that it's simply unaffordable and most people would skip the ~(2,000$/mo) bill. PS: This is borne out by single payer systems which tend to have vastly lower costs for the same procedure. Assuming similar economic conditions. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS