The prices as charged in the US regularly make it onto Twitter and Reddit etc where us Europeans wonder how on earth it's possible that something in the US costs $ 800 which is charged at less than $ 100 over here (and then paid by insurance). Same for that $ 30k device being sold for $ 80k.
What we all forget is that nobody is actually paying the US healthcare invoices.
Roughly two options... 1. You have insurance and they negotiated a different (much lower) rate or 2. you don't have insurance and can't pay the amount on the invoice.
In option 2 you either declare bankruptcy and they get nothing or they sell the claim for something like 20% of the invoice to a collections agency.
