These high prices are mostly just the price insurance companies are billed from hospitals. They each have big kickbacks that they enjoy and generally the average person isn't affected at all if they have insurance. Sometimes we see huge bills for simple routine things, but the balance due is $0. Insurance companies generally just settle it away without your input. If you happen to not have insurance, that is when you get caught in the middle. You get the big bill, but no real insider way of making it go away. Generally hospitals make huge cuts to the bill once they realize they are dealing with an individual vs. a huge insurance company (ie: fuck, we can't play this game we play and expect any winning). So those of us with adequate insurance aren't affected, those with limited insurance are lightly affected, and those with no insurance, well they are poor and few in number so we ignore them.