at the hospital or doctor's office so people can know what they are going to be charged. Even in the convoluted system we have now this should be made available.

I think part of the problem is insurance companies all negotiate different costs and both the hospitals and insurance carriers don't want their competitors to know what they negotiated. So we get stuck in this messed up world of no one knowing what anything will cost until after the procedure or waiting even longer for the insurance company to get back to you.

This is one area that is all on the heads of the hospitals and insurance companies because they are the ones protecting the negotiated rates. Hospital "A" doesn't want insurance company "B" to know that they gave much better prices on pregnancies to insurance company "C". The same goes for the insurance companies.

If they wanted to they could easily have a system where the hospitals plug in a code and tell you what the negotiated rate is with whichever insurance company you have. But they choose not to do this and do a disservice to us consumers as a result.