I knew that hospitals charge ridiculous prices at first and then insurance jumps in. At the time, the insurance that I was on seemed to have a policy of "first let the hospital bill the patient and see if he/she pays then we'll get in involved." My procedure was $3,000+. That was a joke, but it also wasn't wholly inexpensive. I figured I'd end up for my deductible at about $800 or so. Hospital sent me the bill for $3,500. I expected insurance to chime in, but didn't. A month went by, I got an other bill, only lower. I call the hospital why this wasn't being resolved, and they said "looks like we didn't mark the procedure correctly. Ignore the bill, we'll fix this." Another month goes by, another bill, still lower. The bills still come and they kept changing. Eventually, it gets coded correctly and insurance did their part, and I owed $600. I forget it about, though. I get a call on the phone with the hospital saying, "we're going to send you to collections unless we can get some level of payment on this." I ask what the bill is if I pay in full. She says, "Pay in full and it's $380." I said, "I can make that happen."
The U.S. is quite corrupt like any other "third-world" country. Just in different places. Our places are acceptable, though because "deregulation" or "gun rights" or "free speech".