I think you hit the nail on the head. I had a similar story as the OP and after complaining and looking into the price I never heard back from the hospital. In hindsight their actions reminded of highway robbery. This year with the Surgical Center of Oklahoma and the time magazine article on medical billing though a lot of information has come out. Price comparision websites like pricepain.com, clearhealthcost, bluebook of healthcosts etc, are just the beginning. It's almost like a race against the clock where either ACA's price inflation will create so much political upheaval that the single payer system hands this inefficent (non existant!) market place over to the tax-payer (which will mean ever inflating prices) or a solution like this, with dramatically visible pricing information, direct doctor pay, low cost catastrophic insurance will emerge as the saner, cheaper and higher quality solution.