The insurance companies don't do anything that isn't automated and easy. Everything billed is coded and the insurance company already has a set price for that code. If the medical providers don't agree, they can either try to appeal and get an exception or most likely adjust the billing codes until something more reasonable goes through, or they can refuse to accept that insurance plan in their office.

Even if that is true, a company will be successful in the degree they can do this more than the other companies in the same space. I don't think laws like this effectively lower the cost, because first of all, a good chunk goes to lawyers and patient advocates.

Also as the system gets itself more expensive, the mechanics that make it more expensive can also become more worthwhile! Its a spiraling costs issue.

Man healthcare in the U.S. is so broken.

It's likely that the cost was nowhere near $12000. These huge bills are often the result of runaway price inflation and system-gaming and are totally untethered from cost.

Your assumption that "someone else paid for it" only holds if the price was directly tied to external costs and not their own profit.

Sure. But not exactly. No more than you paid extra when the bus boy dropped a load of dishes and broke them. In this case a mistake was made, and the business are the cost. It might have meant prices went up the following year, but I doubt it, as that wasn't really that much money.

Yes, they are fucking over someone else, by padding their bill, and hoping their insurance pays for it - which is why most of us are paying $2000+ /month, if we have an employer-provided plan. (keeps the real costs concealed from the people who are paying).