Here is an excerpt from a fairly lengthy post on the "thread with the controversial title" that spawned this thread (this isn't controversial?).

Along with my manual wheelchair, I have a power wheelchair. It can move at a good, swift jogging pace, it has a 25-mile range on a full charge, and with it, I can go a lot of places that I couldn't otherwise, including riding the city busses (which are equipped with wheelchair lifts). A couple of months ago, the batteries had to be replaced. It takes two 12-volt deep-cycle batteries. The charge to have Care Medical (where I bought the chair) replace the batteries was $500 ($220 per battery, plus $60 for installation).

I asked the technician who was installing the batteries "Why so much?" "Well," said the tech, "the batteries are classed as medical equipment, and they figure some insurance company is going to pay for them anyway."

I checked the labels on the batteries and called my nephew, who works for an auto supply store that, among other things, sells batteries. He said, "Those are standard marine batteries, like for a power boat. You can get them at any battery store. They should cost about 50 bucks apiece, max! Next time your chair needs batteries, fer gawdsake, call me!"

We know that Americans pay a lot more—a lot more—for prescription drugs than people in other countries do. A fair number of Americans who live near the Canadian border find that, even including the cost of the trip, they can get the same prescription drug for less in Canada than they can at their local pharmacy. And I've compared prices for manual wheelchairs with prices for good quality bicycles, which, apart from the design, contain more parts and are generally a bit more complex than a wheelchair. Wheelchairs are much more expensive, for no manufacturing or parts reasons that I can detect, than a considerably more complex bicycle. Why?

I think the Care Medical technician I mentioned above provided the answer.

This raises the question of how much in the way of medical bills, especially ones charged to insurance companies, are heavily padded?

Don Firth