> What you need is for people to be able to choose based on published price information What they're saying is that a large amount of healthcare spending is dr

> What you need is for people to be able to choose based on published price information What they're saying is that a large amount of healthcare spending is driven by patients and providers, but paid for by insurance companies. Neither patients nor doctors have an immediate, short-term incentive to make sure they utilize insurance company resources judiciously. On the contrary, the both have an incentive to consume as many insurance company resources as possible (the patient wants to make sure they get every possible treatment, even if that means consuming 10x resources to prevent a 1/10th as likely outcome, and the provider wants to bill as much as possible to increase revenue). I can tell you, as somebody whose family has catastrophic coverage only, that we think long and hard before we blow $200 so that a doctor can tell us to take some ibuprofen and drink plenty of fluids. And we also ask lots of questions about how much various recommended treatments will cost vs. what they will do for us.