The wiki page is brief but ok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-contract
Copyedited...
Still, it seems worthwhile to work towards penalizing hospitals for routinely going over the line, otherwise they will continue to monetize the difference between what is right and what they can get away with.
And on that front, I still have to ask how it's not straightforward fraud to lie about the expenses incurred? If we're roommates and I pick you up a gallon of milk at the store knowing you want some and will reimburse me, but I add it to our tab as $20 - am I not attempting to defraud you?
Trumped up costs do routinely happen across all sectors. It just seems on this topic that grassroots pushback is never discussed, yet could be quite appropriate. For example, a self-help form letter that demands an "out of network" hospital substantiate exactly why their expenses were double that of every other hospital.
I do agree that hospitals should be paid for the services they perform. It's just that our society's free market notion of price-agreement is predicated on voluntary contracts.
> I talked about this with some of my physician friends, and they told me this is typical. In fact, the original bill doesn't represent what they expect to be paid
For instance, if the hospital is billing under a theory of reimbursement for services provided on your behalf, lying about their costs is textbook fraud.
Or are there explicit state laws that allow hospitals to collect from ER patients without a contract in place? If so these need to be reformed to have uniform charges no matter who the payer is. Like say towing.