[SlightlyLeftPad]

> I doubt it. Hospitals charge $15 for a single pill of Tylenol because they know insurance will pay for it, and that includes private insurance.

Did we discover a new kind of monopoly perhaps? It’s not quite full blown corruption as there still (for now) exists a somewhat adversarial relationship between insurance and hospitals. However, at the same time, they seem to be pulling each other into the abyss, and our society is the victim.

[kmeisthax]

Pretty much every healthcare business unit - hospitals, pharma, insurance, and so on - are deeply consolidated. It spread like contagion, as anyone who didn't consolidate got their margin eaten. The sum of all those different vectors pulling on the same market is one unified message: "rape the consumer for all they're worth"! Because that's the only source of margin left, and everyone's got hungry shareholders who only make money when the business accelerates profit.

[SlightlyLeftPad]

It might as well be Standard oil company