[m10i]

Forgive my ignorance, but does any of this have to do with insurance (I assume you're in the U.S.)? Those prices are absurd, so I'm wondering how is it possible for the average American household to afford to pay for that? I imagine one argument being "that's the thing, they can't afford it"; but.. isn't that what hundreds of thousands of Americans are doing per year?

[jtbayly]

I suspect it does, but who knows? That's part of the problem. Three people do the same thing at the same hospital, but since two of them have different insurance and one is just paying cash, they might get three very different prices on their bill.

[ssdjuka]

You are correct, this is U.S.

No idea how insurance affects prices. But here's another anecdotal evidence: When we were poor (minimum wage level), my wife was on Medicaid or Medicare; think we did not pay anything for it. I'd remember having to pay anything over $1,000 back then. Don't have the receipt to actually say how much hospital charged and how much Medicare payed for it. In that case we'd have 2 points to compare.