This TED Talk features journalist and health care cost investigator, Jeannie Pinder, recorded live at TED Residency 2018.

So a little while ago, members of my family had three bits of minor surgery, about a half hour each, and we got three sets of bills.

For the first one, the anesthesia bill alone was $2,000. The second one, $2,000. The third one, $6,000. So I'm a journalist. I'm like,

what's up with that? I found out that I was actually for the expensive one,

being charged $1,419 for a generic anti-nautia drug

that I could buy online for $2.49.

I had a long and unsatisfactory argument

with the hospital, the insurer, and my employer.

Everybody agreed that this was totally fine.

But it got me thinking, the more I talk to people,

the more I realized nobody has any idea what stuff costs in health care.

Not before, during, or after that procedure or test.

Do you have any idea what it's going to cost?

It's only months later that you get an explanation of benefits that explains during or after that procedure or test, do you have any idea what it's going to cost?

It's only months later that you get an explanation of benefits

that explains exactly nothing.

So this came back to me a little while later.

I'd volunteered for a buyout from the New York Times,

or I'd worked for more than 20 years as a journalist.

I was looking for my next act. It turned out that next act was to build a company telling people what stuff costs in health care. I won a shark tank-type pitch

contest to do just that. Health costs ate up almost 18 percent of our gross domestic product last

year, but nobody has any idea what stuff costs. But what if we did know?

...