[ajmurmann]

Recently the head of the Oklahoma Surgical Center was on [econtalk](https://www.econtalk.org/keith-smith-on-free-market-health-c...). That center was founded in the late 90s, had all their prices on their website, no insurance works with them and get their prices are effectively lower our equal to what they were twenty years ago and lower than at a regular hospital. On top of that the doctors make more when they work for this center than anywhere else.

One thing I learned from the episode is that insurance companies get a reward for the delta between their negotiated price and the price a uninsured person would pay. This creates incentive for hospitals to raise their base price tag. Of course their is more to it. I cannot recommend the episode strong enough.

To me the bottom line is that right now we don't have free market health care and we don't have socialized health care we have the worst of both. Maybe what we have is best received as crony capitalism health care.

Taking a look at their website and just seeing the prices for procedures is incredibly refreshing: https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing

[lotsofpulp]

That is very interesting. I had always thought that price obfuscation was good for both healthcare providers and insurance companies, since any price obfuscation is an advantage for the seller while the buyer is left confused about how much they are paying for what.