its not just that. the hospitals themselves inflate costs. ambulance services, they charge outrageous rates, such as 50 dollars for a 1.50 triangular bandage. why? becuase the INSUREANCE companies are going to pay for it. they know theyll get their money.
On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:48:16 -0500, Jed Rothwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > leaking pen wrote: > > its true that there is more treatment available, but heres the thing. > its NOT that expensive. an average 10k dollar surgery actually costs, > in terms of materials and salarya and other overhead, maybe 1500. > there is a MASSIVE price increase, because, well, pay or die. and as > medical care as we know it has a monopoly on modern healthcare, thats > not about to change. > That is true, and it is an important contributing factor to rising > health-care costs. But the problem could be fixed easily with free-market > capitalism. Traditionally, in the US doctors did not make much money. > Through the 1940s it was said that the only way a doctor could be rich was > to marry money. In Japan they do not make all that much. The reason is > obvious: there are lots of medical schools and lots of doctors. The US > medical profession artificially limits the number of slots available in > medical schools. In any other business that would be considered a violation > of the antitrust laws. The Justice Department is not likely to crack down on > it under this administration, but who knows what might happen in the future. > It would only take 10 or 20 years for the number of doctors to increase > enough to reduce the cost of surgery. The recent collapse of the "body scan" > industry proves that medicine is not immune to the laws of economics. > > Naturally, economic laws operate quite different in medicine than with most > other businesses, because the customer's life is at stake. It is an extreme > situation. But not that extreme, and not unique or unprecedented. Your life > is at stake when you take an airplane trip or drive a car, yet airlines and > automakers are clearly at the mercy of the market. > > Academic researchers also violate antitrust laws with peer-reviewed journals > and the methods they use to allocate funds and grants. Their system is an > open invitation to corruption, graft and plagiarism. > > - Jed > -- "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" Voltaire
