[gowld]

On the one hand, overpriced premium services is great way to finance core services. On the other hand, it gives influential people a distorted view of how most people experience the world. ("Doesn't even know the price of a gallon of milk.")

Also, I thought HIPAA would prevent that behavior.

[nradov]

Nothing in HIPAA would prevent that behavior. It does prevent hospital management from unauthorized access to your medical records for purposes unrelated to care delivery or billing. However it doesn't mention anything about access to public financial records.