[turc1656]

You're being far too kind. I don't mind if people become filthy rich as long as they do it legally. It's supposedly illegal to not quote people prices before providing services, or to have discriminatory pricing. Yet hospitals (you know, that place where those surgeons work) do this on a daily basis and blindly screw people over.

I say "supposedly" because I have yet to see anyone in the medical industry go to jail for violations of the Sherman, Clayton, or Robinson-Patman acts. Mechanics and contractors tried these bullshit games decades ago and it was met with actual enforcement of the law and that's why we have binding estimates for these services now. They also cannot charge you different rates based on which insurance you have. Even more so, if they fail to properly fix something and you bring it back they are required to correct the problem at no additional cost because you already paid them to fix this issue (these occasional instances are supposed to be covered by increasing the quoted estimates to account for a small portion coming back for additional work at no charge). The same is not true in hospitals. Whenever these surgeons perform an operation and there is a complication like, for example, and infection - guess who pays for it. The patient. There is precisely one place that I know of that doesn't do any of this shit in the medical field - The Surgery Center of Oklahoma. They even post a price list. Here's one page: https://surgerycenterok.com/?procedure_category=knee#jump Keep in mind that these prices are not only far less than what hospitals charge, but this includes competitive wages for their surgeons (whom I'm fairly certain aren't slaves) as well as covering the cost of complications, which also provides every incentive for them to not infect you or have complications arise.