system definitely don't. I agree with everyone here that medical costs are out of control, but the crazy thing is that most hospitals work on razor thin budgets. At the same time if you went into a hospital and asked, no one could tell you how much a certain procedure costs. They don't know because it's different for every insurance company, and it's different for Medicaid and Medicare and self-payers too. The whole system is broken.

You could go to one hospital and have a procedure done and it might cost a few hundred while at the hospital across the street the same procedure will cost a few thousand. There is nothing checking their prices and forcing them to be competitive. To that end it's simple economics and publishing prices would go a long way to lowering prices (or at least standardizing them), but it wouldn't fix all of it.

One problem with medical costs is that everything is so specific and unique to medical equipment and resources. From their database systems (hardware and software) to the building and zoning and cabinets and staff. Everything is expensive. Some of it needs to be, and some of it doesn't. Thank government oversight and regulation for that.

It's not just Obamacare, but we can thank that for making it all worse. Some things that make medical care more expensive also make it better, but other things don't. ICD10 for example is generally disliked by doctors but it actually makes medical care better. Why? Because it's essentially a more specific way of recording and reporting on triage and care. Some people think it will cause a rise in costs, but in the long-run it will decrease costs because it will prevent as many mistakes happening when caring for patients. And mistakes happen. I've analyzed the data.

Long story short, I have looked at (and helped set) hospital budgets and also worked in the HIT (Healthcare IT) side of things, and I don't know how we can fix the problem of the insanely high medical costs in the US.

It's true that a huge cost for hospitals is unpaid bills. I was in a business lecture series at BYU a few years ago and the visiting speaker was a CEO of a large hospital in southern Texas. When he was appointed CEO the hospital was losing money hand over fist. He quickly realized that one of the major problems was illegals being admitted and treated and being releases with no hope of them ever paying a cent. He said all the local lawn companies would drive up, drop their friend off with their finger barely hanging on by a thin flap of skin, and drive off. Legally they had to admit and treat these guys, but it was killing the hospital financially. So he gave a permanent, and free parking stall to the border police right by the front doors of the hospital. Along with some other small changes, they were able to become profitable within a year or two.