I've been calling the for-profit health insurance industry "government sanctioned extortion" for a few years now.  It wasn't until I read Time magazine's cover story this week, "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us" that I realized that the whole medical industrial complex is complicit in the crime!  And some of the worst offenders are the so-called "non-profit" hospitals that are raking in billions of dollars in profits and their obscenely paid executives. In the article, we learn about the "chargemaster" or the master pricelist from which each hospital compiles the exorbitant bills. No hospital’s chargemaster prices are [...]