Interesting anecdote from Reason on how Canadian health care treated one woman, or rather failed to treat her, along with a doctor who puts up a price list on his website about what things cost. I tracked the website down and noted an interesting thing.
Some of you know that my dad was in the hospital a month ago. As it turns out, they gave him angioplasty (through the femoral artery, yeow!). If you go to that site, you'll see angioplasty costs $12,500.
That's expensive, but not unmanageable. Presumably, one wouldn't need a lot of angioplasty. And catastrophic coverage well, wouldn't need to be all that huge to cover it.
Now, my dad's two days in the hospital cost $140,000.
Frankly, that seems unpossible to me. Who could possibly afford that? How can something exist in a market that nobody could afford?
I suspect there may be market distortions at work.
If one wanted to fix the health care market, one might start by locating the distortions and removing them.
Just a thought.
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How do you think they pay for all the people who don't pay that they are required to treat? Or all the people with medicare?
ReplyDeleteIt' not like they have any real competition, it's been outlawed.
Also, if you can't pay, you'll find the hospital mysteriously very ready to cut the price and let you pay in installments.
How do you think they pay for all the people who don't pay that they are required to treat? Or all the people with medicare?
ReplyDeleteThe price of hospitalization is a bit like the price of drugs on patent. They're expensive and don't reflect production costs because companies use them to recoup money lost on failures and flops-of which there are a lot more than successes.
I told a little story over on Althouse today about a kid who nearly lost his life but survived and racked up several millions in costs. Link. I didn't mention that he was an uninsured illegal and couldn't possibily have begun to pay for his treatment. But what are they supposed to do?