Why are ER bills so crazy? (with Sarah Kliff of Vox.com

August 13, 2025

ER Door with Danger Sign Emergency rooms often bill you a “cover charge” just for walking in the door, and it can be thousands of dollars.

That’s in addition to the huge markup on everything that happens there: seven bucks for a band-aid. Twenty dollars for a couple of pills.

Reporter Sarah Kliff has collected more than a thousand ER bills from her readers at Vox.

She was an expert on health care before starting this project , she covered it for years at the Washington Post before moving to Vox , but even she found plenty of surprises.

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Host: Dan Weissman (www.danweissmann.com)
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