Agreed, the “charge master” system is crazy. In college I had to fight off debt collectors coming for a $3000 ER bill. $3000 to be given propofol and have my shoulder stuck back in the socket twice (they failed to restrain my arm after the first reduction, my arm flailed upon regaining consciousness and redislocated so they double charged me)

I also wonder what a world where we removed almost all medical regulation would look like.we would at least get true competitive market dynamics. Why do I know exactly what I’ll pay at mcdonalds, but not what I’ll pay for a medical procesure?

Instead we have just enough regulation to prevent healthy market dynamics, but not enough to have a single payer type system