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> If I go see a doctor, I have no idea if I will end up with a $40, $400, $4000, or $40,000 bill until the bill comes months later and I have to pay it. NO IDEA.

Totally right. Which means in practice insurance is covering the risk of pricing rather than the risk of you having health issues.

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It’s a total racket. The worst part is that they’ve managed to tilt the playing field in their favor for even routine fees. Cash prices are higher than “pre-negotiated” reimbursements, unless you cry poverty and a billing clerk cuts you a discount after examining your tax return and assets as an alternative to collections. So you have to buy insurance which is an act that reinforces the hidden inflated prices model.

Average people only have one rational response to random prices: don’t go to the doctor voluntarily. But this can cost them their health in some cases.

Their health?

You mean their life. People actually die without health care. American health care is murdering Americans for profit.

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