Most Americans dont see that as normal, healthcare is one of the top political issues in this country. However, the true costs of healthcare are extremely opaqu

Most Americans dont see that as normal, healthcare is one of the top political issues in this country. However, the true costs of healthcare are extremely opaque. I'd guess the cost of the little anger incident above would be an order of magnitude less with insurance. To add another anecdote, I got a kidney stone ~5 years ago. The cost for ER admission, a CT scan, some lab work, prescriptions, etc was about "$20,000". However, nobody paid anybody $20,000. I paid something like $1000 and my guess is my insurance via their negotiated rates paid something like another $1000 on top of that. How we got there as a country is a long, complicated story.