I do not believe for a single second that your insurance company "pays" their full share as demonstrated when they tell you you have to pay 20% of the cost. I h

I do not believe for a single second that your insurance company "pays" their full share as demonstrated when they tell you you have to pay 20% of the cost. I have no evidence but I am strongly convinced that there is some sort of account reconciliation between an insurance company and an in network provider where they settle accounts in a ... more palatable manner. There is just no way Humana would pay over $7k for two hours of waiting for triage in the emergency room and eventually a rabies vaccine shot. You've hit the problem right in the head here. > Medicine should not be a negotation. There should be one price for everyone and you shouldn't have to know anyone or pull strange tricks to get the real price. If we don't even know what something costs, how can we begin to drive the cost down? From what I've read: Part of the problem is hospitals themselves don't know the exact cost. I think another part should be the introduction of death panels. There should be a point being which we will "put down" a suffering patient. We do this with dogs and cats all the time. If someone is suffering and very unlikely to make a good recovery, we should put them out of their misery. Or at least we shouldn't pour so much effort into keeping them alive.