Most of us comparison shop when we need a new appliance, computer or car.  But for the first time, I've tumbled into the new experience of comparison shopping to find the best deal on the cost of my medical care.  I have been utterly shocked by what I've discovered so far.

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This is the experience of one patient, who spent an entire day in the emergency room at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas:

I welcomed 2008 in a new city with a new job. Unfortunately, I woke up New Year's Day with an intense and debilitating pain in my abdomen. Because I was weeks shy of being insured by my new employer, I tried to ride out the increasingly painful cramping to the best of my ability. Even though my stomach was bizarrely misshapen and distended, and I felt shooting pains ricocheting through my body, I held out for two full days before I sought emergency care.

I went to the county hospital, because I was fearful of incurring private hospital costs. After paying to park (at a hospital?), I still had to hobble a mile to the ER. In the maze of hallways, I was stopped once by a hurried doctor who gave me his phone number and then again by a man who wanted change to buy a cheeseburger. "Chaos" is a word that doesn't come close to describing the labyrinth of the "free" hospital.

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