Discussion on:

Castlight: know what medical procedures cost beforehand

...I can attest to the difficulty in trying to find out the cost of it before consuming it. Even today, if you walk into nearly any medical office and ask someone in the window how much a given service costs, you will almost always get blank stares. They don't know. More often than not, there's a "secret price" that is negotiated between your provider and your insurance company that is almost impossible to know until after the service is performed. This makes making rational consumer decisions practically impossible.

And of course, since most people don't even pay for their own care (up front, anyway) they never even know what the costs are. And they don't care. (Or don't want to know) This is why I actually think it's a good thing that more people are being made to pay more for their own care. It's difficult paying cash in a world where most people bid prices to the stratosphere because they don't feel as though they have any skin in the game.

What health care in America needs more than anything else is transparency. And finally, we're starting to get some.

It would also be good to see a ranking tied to the prices. Once consumers see prices as well as something that indicated the cheaper guy also had fewer problems, quicker recovers, etc. then the race would be on for providers to compete in giving you the most cost effective care.