Not trying to instigate, but this is simply way off. Things simply do not need to cost nearly as much as we pay for them in our system. Look at how little the same procedures and medications cost elsewhere in the world, and you'll be astonished. We don't get the "best" care, we just get the priciest. It's reflected in our health quality, which falls behind other countries that spend way less. Leaving aside anecdotes about "this one time" and referring to meaningful statistics, the WHO puts us waaaay behind the rest of the pack, with paradise nations like Slovenia for company.

Why? Much of it has to do with hospitals needing to cover their own losses in the face of millions of uninsured emergency room visits. All those uninsured folks out there with zero preventative care are walking liabilities, and the rest of us end up paying for it in our insurance premiums. There's also a mysterious accounting circus between health care providers and insurers. We insured folks generally don't pay directly, so we're fairly insensitive to prices that would otherwise seem ridiculous; if there's no official oversight, any sensible business would see this as a profitable opportunity. Unlike a lot of idealistic, left-wing propaganda, the comparative disadvantages of our health care system are in abundant evidence, and there are plenty of other countries setting the example for better health care. Seems we'd rather dump our dollars into business and politicians than into actual health care.