If you live in the US and don’t have medical insurance, you might want to look into getting some after seeing just how expensive some procedures are…
It’s long been clear that in the United States, getting medical treatment without insurance can become overwhelmingly costly.
One recent example involved British couple Issy Ferris and Archie Sylvester, who received a $200,000 bill after Ferris gave birth seven weeks early in Nashville.
BBC News reported last month that the travel insurer initially declined to cover the costs on the basis that their unborn baby wasn’t listed on the policy, though the decision was later reversed.
Even so, a $200,000 charge is still far below what some major operations can cost, with certain procedures reaching well beyond $1,000,000 for uninsured patients.
U.S. News has outlined some of the priciest surgeries in America for people without insurance, based on figures available in 2025.
Statista, meanwhile, estimates that a double lung transplant can exceed $2.3 million, while a heart transplant may land around $1.9 million.
At the lower end of the list, the least expensive procedure cited by the data platform was a cornea transplant at $57,000.
Overall, the numbers have climbed sharply compared with just a few years ago.
In a Fortune article published in 2017, the cost of a heart transplant was put at $1.4 million, and a pancreas transplant at $347,000—an amount that has since risen to nearly double.
U.S. News also ranks bone marrow transplants among the most expensive. In 2017, that procedure was reported to cost $893,000, highlighting another area where pricing has surged.
Investopedia points to clinician pay as one contributor to the high cost of healthcare in the US, given the comparatively high salaries earned by doctors and surgeons.
The outlet reported that a family doctor could earn as much as $239,000 a year in 2023, while an emergency room physician averaged more than $300,000 annually.
Those figures are notably higher than reported pay levels in countries such as Germany ($183,000), the UK ($138,000), and Canada ($194,777).
Medication prices are another major piece of the puzzle. Americans are said to pay—on average—about twice as much for pharmaceuticals as people in other industrialized nations.
In 2022, the average spend on prescription drugs in the US was $963 per person.
One reason cited for the gap is the way pricing is set: private insurers in the US negotiate directly with drug manufacturers, while many other countries use government regulation to keep medication costs down.