The problem with hospitals being owned by for-profit entities is that pricing can be arbitrary. IF you can get away with overcharging it doesn’t matter where you are, so long as people pay. Some hospitals gouge even further than the usual song and dance between healthcare provider and insurance. The largest offenders seem to be in Florida.
The researchers said other consumers who could face those high charges are patients whose hospitals are not in their insurance company’s preferred network of providers, patients using workers’ compensation and those covered by automobile insurance policies.
Generally, hospitals know they won’t be collecting on the money they invoice as only a fraction is covered by insurance, and even then some patients are not insured yet are provided services. That explains astronomical invoices for apparently mundane procedures. Profit maximizing hospitals don’t have any checks or balances for their pricing, so they’ll go as high as they can.
For more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-some-hospitals-can-get-away-with-price-gouging-patients-study-finds/2015/06/08/b7f5118c-0aeb-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html