For sure. From having lived in Germany, it's not the payor that makes it cheap, it's the regulated prices. There is simply a (low) price that everyone pays wh

For sure. From having lived in Germany, it's not the payor that makes it cheap, it's the regulated prices. There is simply a (low) price that everyone pays when they go to the hospital. We also have something similar in the U.S., given that roughly half of medical care is paid for by the government. Medicare sets prices for each CPT code, and they do it through a formula that depends on geography, and something called Relative Value Units. This is done nominally by the Center for Medicare Services, but they rubber stamp the work of the Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee, which is a group of doctors appointed by their respective medical societies to decide how much Medicare should pay them. When doctors can simply tell the government how much they should be paid, what do you think is gonna happen?