Hospitals & Their Fake Prices
23rd March 2026
Hospital prices are out of control. We know this.
A patient recently posted a bill showing a hospital charge of $17,813 for an MRI. Her insurance absorbed most of it, but she was still left owing about $2,600 herself. This is not some isolated curiosity. In the recent House Energy and Commerce hearing on health care affordability, Rick Pollack of the American Hospital Association defended hospital finances by arguing that “Medicare and Medicaid payments generally do not cover the full cost of providing care.”
That is the standard hospital defense. Privately insured patients, they say, must make up the difference. They are the cross subsidy.
But the same MRI can often be purchased in a competitive cash market for a fraction of the hospital charge. That alone tells us the hospital bill is not simply the price of an MRI. It is an opaque financing mechanism for the hospital’s broader cost structure.
Hospitals, by law, are not allowed to deny care to people who can’t or won’t pay. They’ve got to cover that cost somehow.s