I'm the author of the article, but I'm not a lawyer.

Regarding your first point:

I'm aware of the copyright on billing codes. I suspect it means "you can't make your own billing codes based off of our system."

I don't think it means you can't republish the codes anywhere. They're republished all the time.

Someone can jump in and correct me.

Secondly:

The CMS law required hospitals to itemize their procedures by billing code _and_ by insurance company. Not that they all do that, but in theory, these negotiated rates should allow you to price shop between hospitals. The "list prices" are effectively meaningless.