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Billed costs for specific care are very often cheaper for the insurance company than when it is billed to the uninsured. The costs are controlled by and for the insurance companies, and the object of the system is not to provide the best care to the consumer but to save money and keep it in the hands of the insurance company.
Not only is that false, it's illegal, and physicians who are caught billing different insurance companies and individuals at different rates are subject to some pretty severe fines by the Federal government, and possily jail time. Billed costs must be identical for all payors.
*Reimbursement rates* are cheaper for insurance companies than they are for self-pay (i.e. uninsured) patients who are billed as individuals. This is because physicans contract with insurance companies to be paid at a certain rate or percentage of the fee for that service. Depending on the insurance company and individual plans within those companies, physicians can make nearly the full fee for a service, or chump change. I've seen a $120 office visit reimbursed for $23.
When a self-pay patient gets a bill, they are seeing the full fee that the physician charges TO EVERYONE. What they pay themselves is another matter entirely, and most physicians and hospitals will offer steep discounts to self-pay patients roughly matching their average reimbursement for a given service.
