breaking everything down, we can only account for $5000, so where did they get the other $25000 in extra charges? that’s the big question.[/quote]
Those are the ones you’re supposed to negotiate away. They are fictional charges which have no bearing to the real cost of healthcare, because almost no one would pay them.
In other words – even if the hospital would charge everyone honestly, we’d still spend 16% of GDP on healthcare.
If this weren’t the case, and you could really expect to cut OP’s hospital bill from 30k to 5k through single-payer healthcare reform, you would’ve cut spending from 16% of GDP to 3% of GDP. Which is significantly less than what everyone outside sub-Saharan Africa spends.
