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Fill up the cart at the grocery, pay for them. Turn on the lights, pay the electric bill. Fill the car with gas, pay the station.

Medical expenses are so opaque. The gas station has a big sign out front with the price per gallon. The pump updates you as you fill it. Supermarkets are usually pretty good about posting the prices of their products as you fill your cart.

A few years ago, we had an exchange student from Colombia. She took out insurance for her visit. She was helping out with our church. She fell and hurt her ankle. Her mother in Colombia wanted her to go to the emergency room. It was a mild sprain, and they only taped it up. Her insurance paid over $3,000. She goes home, and WE get a bill as my wife was the one who brought her in to the emergency room. They still wanted $600 from us. I kept on providing the her insurance, and several bill collectors tried to make us pay $600 AFTER the hospital got thousands for treatment that was worth only a couple of hundred. I finally shook them.

This is NOT like going into the Whole Foods and paying a 30% premium on a grocery bill.

I took my family to Lake Shasta back in 1997. My 11 year old daughter developed severe diarrhea that was non-stop. After about 3 days, which was on a Sunday evening I took her to the emergency room at the hospital in Redding. We got there around 5 in the afternoon, and I presented my insurance to the staff, there was nobody else in the waiting room. By 7 the place was getting full and every one of them walked up to the window and told them they had a severe headache and forgot their MediCal card. 1 gal even told them her headaches were twice as bad as anyone else in the room and to give her a double dose of painkillers.

They finally saw my daughter and gave her a shot and sent us on our way with a bed pan in case she had to crap while we were driving back to our home in Washington. About a month went by and I got the bill for $6,000 for a shot and a bed pan! Fortunately, I had 100% full medical coverage, but I’m sure it was to make up for the cost of the meth heads that night in the emergency room.