06/22/2026
A $350 cash MRI at a center down the street versus $2,500 through insurance for the exact same scan. Mark Cuban's question is simple: why isn't anyone at the insurance company pointing patients toward the cheaper option?
He dropped the question on X as a reply to a physician thread debating who's really driving healthcare costs up. The post racked up 1.1 million views and got a second life in late May after he kept pushing the same argument.
Cuban's case is that the largest pharmacy benefit managers are owned by the largest insurance companies, and that vertical integration wipes out any reason to bring prices down. "They are TOO BIG TO CARE," he wrote. "Employer, patient, state, hospital, physician, if they can charge you, they will."
The replies flooded in with patient receipts. A CT scan billed at $9,000 with no pricing disclosed upfront. An ER visit that came to $5,000 until the patient requested an itemized cash receipt and it fell to $430. A Kaiser scan at $1,800 when a clinic nearby offered the same thing for $350 cash.
When someone brought up a denied $5,000 CAT scan, Cuban's follow-up was blunt: "The insurance company always late pays underpays and denies claims. Jacking up the cost for the provider. Which is why cash is cheaper."
