[pc86]

Is your complaint that a hospital can charge you for a service that was rendered, that they perform services you might have to pay for, or that they assume you're not interested in rate-shopping your surgeon?

Yes, you are legally obligated to pay for services rendered. I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone to argue the opposite, though.

[baconner]

The problem isn't that you have to pay for services rendered. The problem is the pricing and service system is extremely opaque. You can receive services without ever having an opportunity to know what those services are or how much they will cost. And that's not restricted to high emergency care its everything. It's not comparable to paying for services in other industries where pricing is presented up front or at least before services are rendered. The opaqueness leads to price inflation as well so service prices aren't regulated by the consumer market.

For example once my wife had to go to the er and we'd taken great pains to know ahead of time what hospital was covered best under our insurance. Yet the bill contained test services performed in he hospital that were not covered because a room in the hospital was operated by a separate lab company that didn't accept our insurance. There was literally no way for us as consumers to know that one type of blood test regularly covered by our insurance in a covered facility would go through the magic door into an uncovered facility. Price inflation and surprise bills are emergent properties of the system and that needs to change.

I am all for consumers having choice and taking personal responsibility for their care but our healthcare system makes that effectively impossible.

[fargolime]

The observation is, in EU countries with nationalized healthcare you don't get a hospital bill. In the US you can have good health insurance and still get a bill that bankrupts you and leaves you homeless. You can't rate shop in advance of getting rear-ended.