Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban isn’t letting the absurdity of America’s health care costs slide—not when a scan can cost more than some used cars.
On Saturday, Cuban resumed his crusade for health care reform by highlighting what he sees as a glaring failure in pricing. “Explain to me why the insurance company will pay $2500 for an MRI when there is a center down the street that will do it for $350?” wrote on X.
The question was not random. It came during a thread where Cuban was already venting about pharmacy benefit managers and the excessive influence of large insurance companies.
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“I’m all for PBM reform,” he wrote earlier that day. “But you realize the biggest PBMs are owned by the biggest insurance companies… They’re TOO BIG TO COURSE … Employer, patient, state, hospital, doctor—if they can ask you, they will.”
That’s when a user pushed back, arguing that insurers simply pay the bills submitted by providers and are not the ones who set high prices. Kuban’s response—his rhetorical MRI question—cut through the complexity with a clear price comparison.
The message was clear: insurance companies have no incentive to control costs when they benefit from a bloated system. And for Cuban, it’s not just inefficient—it’s exploitative.
“They’re not required to be,” Cuban added in a follow-up. “And that’s the point. They increase the prices.”
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Others quickly chimed in with real-world examples. One said their MRI was quoted over $1,500 with insurance but only cost $275 when paid in cash. Another said their scan was listed at $1,200 to $3,200 with insurance—but only $212 at a local imaging center.
Cuban, who co-founded the low-cost pharmacy platform Cost Plus Drugs, has spent the last few years attacking middlemen and opacity in the health care system. His strategy focused on reducing layers of bureaucracy that offset prices without delivering value. That same frustration is now aimed squarely at insurers who, in his view, continue to reward inflated fees rather than steer patients towards affordable alternatives.
He has also been vocal about pushing Congress to force PBMs and insurers to shed their overlapping interests, calling for greater transparency and more consumer leverage.