America’s hospitals: Our system lets big hospitals charge exorbitant prices. It’s time for change.

America’s hospitals: Our system lets big hospitals charge exorbitant prices. It’s time for change.: If you’re not saving money by shopping around for a better deal, and if you have no idea if you’re getting better care, you might as well go to the hospital closest to you. Hospitals that don’t face competition from other nearby hospitals thus have a huge amount of power in their local markets. If a private insurer refuses to pay a hospital’s exorbitant prices, a hospital can just walk and wait for the insurer’s customers to scream bloody murder over the fact that they can’t use their local hospital.