[watwut]

It is hard to shop around because prices are not transparent. It is very hard to find out in advance how much exactly will everything cost you. You can get some partial information (how much they charge for room), but they will not tell you in advance about all the tests you will have to pay. Then there are small item hospitals charge a lot for: band-aids for example. Unless you know a lot about healthcare system, you will not be able to guess all of them.

Plus, hospitals are not in habit of committing to agreed upon price in advance. So, even if you shop around the amount they will charge you still can be much different then the one you calculated.