Quote:
Originally posted by wonderwench
This situation begs the question as to why a week in a hospital and a few anti-venom shots costs $120,000.
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Sidenote - it costs that much because anti-venom is terrifically expensive to make. There is not a synthetic compound that can replace the snake venom portion. Each time a snake is milked, you don't even get enough venom to account for a dose of anti-venom. Then the venom is injected into a horse and antibodies are produced. It takes a long time. A snake bite and weekend in the hospital is not just a shot or two of anti-venom. It is many shots over several days, each costing thousands of dollers. Add to that the possibility of intensive care unit quality life support because your heart and lungs may also have been paralyzed and a probably medivac since time is such an issue, not to mention profits for insurance. So, it's really expensive. God bless the Discovery Channel for teaching me this.
On the main topic, there was a huge discussion about this (state-sponsored health care) on another forum. A poster there pointed out that one reason health care costs are soaring and quality is not rising at the same pace is that there is an inherent difficulty in systems in which the consumer is not directly billed. Meaning, when a third party (like your HMO) gets involved and the care provider is responsible to that third party and not to the consumer, value (quality to cost) will suffer. This jives well with my experience of the world. I regret that the man who posted this orignially is both much smarter than I and a better writer, so I am sure I haven't done his idea justice.