[cryptonector]

In a world of pre-1990s, high-deductible, 80/20 insurance, this would happen less as the insurance company might not do the 800lb gorilla thing until the patient maxes their deductibles, and high deductibles give the consumer a strong incentive to negotiate directly with the provider.

[Sir_Vival]

It's insane more people haven't realized this. All you need to do to fix our healthcare system is bring transparency to prices and have insurance actually be insurance again instead of health plans. I have multiple anecdotes from my own life where I didn't care about the cost of something due to my insurance paying for it (and in some instances not being able to be informed of the price beforehand). When you have a whole country like that it's easy to see how things have gotten to this point.

The only downside is I don't see how it would fly politically...which is a big downside.

[cryptonector]

Piecemeal. First require more price transparency. Then stop incentivizing the HMO/PPO type of insurance.