[jyrkesh]

> I wouldn't say a surgery could be considered routine until it's complete. That's hindsight bias.

Ehhhh, not if said surgery has a really high success rate and a really low rate of additional complications. There's all sorts of surgeries--say, LASIK eye surgery--that have a 99%+ success rate. And actually, LASIK is a great example of an operation that has lots of price transparency, competition, and where folks have the time to shop around, and it's fairly cheap as a result (~$2-3k per eye).

We can do this with more in the healthcare industry.

[dghlsakjg]

There are plenty of surgeries and medical procedures where pricing is upfront, clear, and competitive.

What they all have in common is that these are procedures that are not covered by insurance. Cosmetic surgery and other elective procedures are all easily cross-shopped.

It would appear that insurance is a significant part of the problem

[mwerd]

Agreed. Insurance, Medicare in particular, is the root of these issues, from my biased insider's perspective. Doctors don't want to deal with insurance any more than consumers do...