...they have to play all kinds of games with those numbers, charging inordinate amounts in order to get what they need via expected discounts.
Sounds like more reason to change such a screwed up system.
From what you describe, if the insurance company wasn’t part of the picture, I could have got screwed big time and probably would have...just like so many other people have had to mortgage houses to pay hospitals.
Read your post a few times. Man....what a mess. Imagine if you took your car to the mechanic and had this kind of ‘accounting episode’.
It’s gonna get a LOT worse when the government takes it over.
Consider that they’re going to levy $100,000,000,000 in taxes annually to run it - and you’re STILL going to paying the same (or worse) out-of-pocket premiums, and there will STILL be the same number of uninsured people.
Want to simplify the system? End the ban on inter-state health insurance plans, make all insurance premiums tax-deductible, reform tort laws, and - most directly to your issue - force the government to pay the bill they’re given instead of saying “f*** you, here’s 10%”.