It’s funny how anything elective or cosmetic is like that. To be clear, infertility is a serious medical condition, and I’m not making light of it. The distinction I’m making is an economic one. When patients have more choice as to whether to even be a patient, you see much, much more consumer-friendly openness about pricing. So it is possible. Fertility treatment is a great example. So is elective eye surgery. These areas of healthcare are very different from the “sign your life away now and we’ll send you the bill later” standard of most healthcare.

If something goes wrong in the surgery and you need emergency care do they just cover it free through their own for of elective surgery insurance, or is it an opaque cost?

This reminds me of the situation with the telecoms in the east europe - it's almost the same. There were no incumbents, so both internet access and private healthcare are leagues above US. It's just not comparable. Also include online banking here.

You need stuff done - you go and get it, end of the story. No bullshit, no courts, no nothing, and it's orders of magnitude cheaper.

Bascially, the joys of free, open, not schizophrenically regulated market mechanisms and competition, unlike the U.S. healthcare system, which despite many common claims to the contrary is a shitshow of protectionism, half-assed regulation regimes and all sorts of bizarre half-measured meddling.

Dentists can usually give precise charges.

Kaiser Permanente usually has a precise copay for just about anything they do. So you have a good idea what the charges will be going in. And nothing like an extra $10,000 because one of the surgical team was "out of network".