This is the second installment in a four-part series.

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Look around the health-care world, and the almighty dollar can rear its head just about anywhere.

Its often seen in the balance sheets of biopharmaceutical giants, where net margins are double or even triple that of a normal, healthy corporation. Finance gets injected into the medical system when doctors are able to charge triple what Medicares fees are by staying out of public health programs and keeping their true expenses under wraps.

And rapidly expanding hospital chains, with newfound market power, pile on administrative expenses when a patient comes in for a simple procedure, turning a $200 echocardiogram into a $2,000 ordeal.

Based on its pricing, Health-care spending looks more like a luxury good than a necessary good, said Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Are Americans being gouged for their medical care?

Its a given that the U.S. health-care system doesnt behave like a normal free-market entity. Reluctance on the part of consumers to put a price on their own health care coupled with the relatively intimate relationship between the provider/doctor and the customer/patient has put the sector in its own category on the economic landscape.

(Read Why your medical bills will just keep growing.)

Mix in the fact that for the bulk of Americans, most of the bill paying is made painless by insurers. Thats resulted in very little pushback on prices, at least on consumers part, for decades.

What it all means is that few restraints have been put on the health-care sector, which has metastasized into a $3 trillion annual business that consumes 18% of gross domestic product. For many, pricing doesnt matter, and so many in the system have free rein to charge what they want.

Read the original post:

Health Exchange: Are consumers getting gouged on health care?