This is maybe true but the actual number you pay is a total gamble depending on whatever the hospital feels like they can discount this month, whatever loopholes the insurance has found for not paying, whatever hoops the insurance or hospital have set up and you have jumped through correctly or not and how much time you have for the next few months or years to fight the bill.

It’s a totally insane and arbitrary system. Probably the pinnacle of a large and unaccountable bureaucracy. Sometimes I wonder if dealing with the mob is a more straightforward and reliable thing vs going to a hospital.