Prices For Hip Replacement In US Vary Hugely
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/256222.php
Which is worse? That the estimated cost (surely underestimated!) varied by over an order of magnitude or that half couldn’t even provide an estimate? If this weren’t such a tragic commentary on our POS healthcare system it would be amusing a hell. Other than government contracting, where else can you enter into an agreement to spent a lot of money and have not one single clue on how much money you are going to spend until after you are obligated to spend it? At least when a car dealer jacks up the price at the last minute you can still walk away, but in health care, you have already spent the money before you know the price!
Of course, all this is hidden from the average Joe. For the poor people, they aren’t paying anyway so couldn’t care less. For most of the rest, the health insurance company pays, so what do the patients care? It sort of reminds me of the farcical paperwork purporting to estimate the charges when closing on a mortgage, but at least there we are talking about a small fraction of the overall price, not an order of magnitude variation in price!
And people continue to insist that we have the best healthcare system in the world! I guess sheeple will repeat whatever they hear…
