A federal law intended to protect healthcare consumers from surprise medical bills appears to have had some unfortunate side effects. The New York Times reports (Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz, "A $440,000 Breast Reduction: How Doctors Cashed In on a Consumer Protection Law," New York Times, April 22, 2026):"The No Surprises Act was designed to eliminate surprise medical bills, for patients who showed up in the emergency room and were treated by a doctor who didn’t take their insurance."It bars those out-of-network doctors from billing patients directly. Instead, they can plead their case to a government-approved arbitrator. If they win,…