It sounds like this isn't the cost of service, but the residual cost of buying defaulted debts. The hospitals and insurers have already written off the service as a loss and are trying to recoup anything they can by selling the debts for pennies on the dollar.

Unfortunately, that means that your payments are shouldering the burden of someone else's inability to pay the ludicrous cost of healthcare.

We can fix this by

1. Refusing care without payment at the time of service, which isn't possible, or even moral, in many cases.

2. Nationalizing healthcare and directly supporting healthcare with taxes so that payment is guaranteed to the service providers.