Hey, that's a horrible story. What this article highlights is that due to the dysfunctional nature of the current healthcare system a procedure that all parties

Hey, that's a horrible story. What this article highlights is that due to the dysfunctional nature of the current healthcare system a procedure that all parties agreed to do the surgery at $3000 vs the original quote of $30,000. If the system was fixed your current wife might have faced a bill of $4000 vs $30,000 based on an extrapolation. Still not great but a lot better. You could get there two ways. You could have clear transparent pricing for hospitals and you could look at that pricing ahead of time and determine your preferred hospital in case of an emergency. Or the government could set hard prices (as we're starting to see now in MA which is leading the way in the US in terms of this direction)