[anigbrowl]

Not only are the prices outrageous and the process confusing even if you do have insurance, but patients are burdened with an absurd amount of unfriendly administration, in which all expenses are coded and the people you call up on the phone are little better at understanding these codes [1]. Now, those codes have some utility to medical bureaucrats, but because the healthcare system in the US is so unresponsive to people's needs the billing may as well be in a foreign language.

I used to live in the UK, and I really, really miss being able to go to the doctor and only having to worry about the medical advice you got, instead of trying to decipher pages of obscurantist documentation for your visit.

1. An example of (part of) the new system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD-10_Procedure_Coding_System The full ICD includes specific codes for things like being bitten by a turtle, sustaining a fall in an opera house, or 3 different situtions involving collisions with a lamppost.