Real answers · Your bills and your plan
How does health insurance work?
The real answer
You pay a premium every month, and for covered care in network you pay a share of the price your plan agreed with the doctor or hospital, through your deductible, copays and coinsurance, up to your plan’s yearly out-of-pocket maximum. That agreed price is a contract rate nobody shows you at the counter, but under the Affordable Care Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 300gg-15a and 18031(e)(3)) most plans must publish it in public files (45 CFR 147.212) and, when you ask before you go, give you an estimate of your share (45 CFR 147.211).
What is a contract rate? — answered from the law, on provern.org
The house’s version
Shopping with Standard Healthcare is simple. Here is everything you need to know.
A parody, from How it works.