My wife recently gave birth to our first child. Normal delivery - 2 nights in a hospital. Then we had to go back again for jaundice - nothing serious - but adde

My wife recently gave birth to our first child. Normal delivery - 2 nights in a hospital. Then we had to go back again for jaundice - nothing serious - but added another 2 nights in a hospital room. All said and done my insurance was billed $64,000 for what is considered a normal uncomplicated birth. That is insane to me. If you go over the bill carefully, instantly 50% of that disappears because I've "saved" by being with my insurance provider. What if I had no insurance? Would I get billed that insane number and have to spend hours whittling it down? My dad was commenting on how the drug he takes regularly in his home country (outside the US) is 1/10th the price of what it costs here. The health insurance system is broken in USA (who knew?). Everything is artificially over-inflated because it all gets "negotiated" down in the end. This creates a lot of room to maximize your net revenue when you set prices arbitrarily high.