Chances are, at some point in your life, you will encounter（遭遇） a health scare（ 惊吓）. You will either be lying down in pain and suffering（ 痛苦）, looking up from a stretcher（担架）. Or your stomach will be dropping, as you watch someone you love endure（忍耐） pain and suffering（ 痛苦）. In moments like this, time stands still. Fear and helplessness（无能为力） wash over your body. Universal（宇宙的） human emotions that unite（联合） all of us.

  During moments of fear, pain, or lack of knowledge, it is impossible to make an informed decision. So what's the cost? First the incident（事件）, and then the bill. And before you know it, you're paying something much higher than you thought that could quite frankly（坦率地）, cause financial devastation（毁坏）. The fact is, 70% of Americans cannot confidently（ 确信地） say they understand the cost of healthcare（ 卫生保健） services. That is 210 million people.

  That's staggering（蹒跚的）. I have had the privilege（特权） of leading in healthcare（ 卫生保健） for the past 18 years. I've had to become more vigilant（警惕着的） than I ever thought I would have to be as a consumer of healthcare（ 卫生保健）. At its core（果实的心）, healthcare（ 卫生保健） consumerism is the idea that people should be empowered（授权与） to make informed choices. Treating healthcare like any other consumer purchase（买） we make, where we both seek（寻找） and expect the best value for our money. All stories tie back to a singular thread（线）, though, of not planning ahead or asking questions to determine value.

  Today, I will empower you with the basic concept（概念） of planning ahead and three simple questions that you can ask starting tomorrow that will genuinely（真正地） change the way that you approach（向…靠近） healthcare（ 卫生保健）. How many of you remember your first car? That's what I thought. Mine was a 1982 Subaru GL named Sammy that had a hole in the trunk. My freshman year of college, Sammy died for good. And while I was very upset, I was absolutely ready for an upgrade（升级） to my dream car, a Volkswagen Beetle（甲虫）.

  One day, I was driving down the road and I spotted（认出） a white Volkswagen Beetle（甲虫） and I used car dealership. I immediately pulled over. I ran into the car dealership, found（找到） that salesperson（售货员） and said, "I'm taking this baby for a ride." The second I opened that door, those black leather seats, all I could think about was blasting（炸） the spice（香料） girls, jamming out to wannabe, and putting a flower in the vase next to the steering wheel. And then I looked down and I saw that it was a stick shift, which I never driven before in my life, but I didn't care. And as we lurched out of the car dealership, trying to get the clutch（离合器） to engage（使从事于）, I knew that I wanted that car.

  By the time we got back to the car dealership, someone else knew I wanted it too, the salesperson. He coincidentally told（ 告诉） me that two other people would be back within the hour to take Betsy for a test drive. Yes, I had already named her. Fear, panic（惊慌）, pressure set in. It was not the time to be making an uninformed decision, but what did I do? I applied for a loan（贷款）, I couldn't afford, I got approved（赞成）, and I drove that car off the lot that day. A few hours later, I called my father and he asked me how much I paid for it, and then proceeded（开始） to tell（ 告诉） me that I got ripped（撕） off.

  How many of you would unknowingly flush（奔流） thousands of dollars down the toilet like I did with Betsy? Nobody would. The harsh（严厉的） reality is the majority（多数） of you are on health care, and you have no idea. I recognize that certain situations in health care are absolutely emergent（ 突现的） and completely unavoidable（ 不可避免的）. Yet（但是） 43 percent of health care costs are shoppable, allowing you time for planning and saving you from costly（昂贵的） mistakes. How do we fix this?