Healthcare price wars? Price Wars? The look on Marvin the Martian’s face (image courtesy of Looney Tunes) says it all. And much to the chagrin of healthcare provider leadership, who have managed to convince themselves that healthcare pricing is a black box so complex that the healthcare consumer won’t understand, is now an emperor with no clothes. That gross misconception sold to the unsuspecting patient and healthcare consumer after all these years is coming to an end. You can scream and yell, all you want to my friends. File all the lawsuits you want to too. But sooner rather than later, price transparency and price accountability are coming to healthcare. Oh, and saying that it’s a great trade secret in negotiations with payers to obtain maximum favorable reimbursement is just nonsense. Um, when the patient receives the EOB from their payer, I guess the “cat is out of the bag.” Your price is publicly known as well as the discounts, write-off, and other tangential pricing items. And ...