““What the research shows is that the charge master and commercial insurance company prices for the same test or treatment will also vary substantially even at neighboring medical facilities where, presumably, basic input costs such as rent and wages do not vary substantially. Colonoscopies in New York City can vary fourfold—between $2,025 and $8,700—depending on the hospital. This variation in price is very hard to justify. Typically, neither patients nor physicians have access to the price, so they cannot shop around for lower prices. Imagine you were shopping for a new shirt but there was no price tag and you could not know until weeks after you bought it whether the shirt cost $25 or $200. This would make shopping a crazy experience.””
![“[S]ometimes, when you are a food person, the possible irrelevance of what you are doing doesn’t cross your mind until it’s too late. (Once, for example, when I was just starting out in the food business, I was hired by the caper people to develop a lot of recipes using capers, and it was weeks of…” quote by Nora Ephron](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d79/nora-ephron-1217_business_s-ometimes-when-you-are-a-food-person-th_980.jpg)
![“If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.” quote by Bertrand Russell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bad/bertrand-russell-69_acquire_if-the-state-does-not-acquire-supremacy_1379.jpg)