In Canada the provincial health care bodies (e.g. Alberta Health Care in my case) determine the prices, so there are no market forces as such.
ETA - I don’t know what restrictions if any there are on what people without provincial health care coverage (like you folk if you come north of the border) can be charged, but with a few exceptions anyone living up here has provincial health care coverage.
I cut my finger open last year and went to the emergency room. For them to glue it shut (not even stitches) and give me a tetanus shot was over $500. (I can find the bill after I get home.)
Holy shit, I can mail you some Q-tips if you’d like, and I’ll only charge half of that.
A co-worker of mine had an arterio-venous malformation in her brain that was discovered about a year and a half ago. They had to wait to operate since she was pregnant at the time.
She had the surgery a year ago this week. To do the scans, cut a plug out of her skull, cut the affected blood vessel area out of her brain, reattach the ends correctly, dose her with radiation and tend to her recovery, the total bill was $750,000.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was a major reason our high deductible insurance plan went up this year, but I’m awfully glad she made it.
i was billed $300 for a steroid injection into a blemish (basically, stabbed a buried zit with a hypodermic…) total time with doctor: less than 2 minutes. this is definitely a case of, had i known how much it would cost, i would’ve just left it alone because it was definitely cosmetic.
Please remember in the midst of these stories that you are not paying the people doing these jobs for their time. You are paying them for what they know. Reminds me of a story about somebody calling in a mechanic to fix a machine. Mechanic looks it over, picks up a tool, gives the machine a whack and bingo, it works. Cost is $1005.00. “What!” says the outraged customer, “$1005.00 for you to hit it with a hammer?” “Nope,” replies the mechanic. "It was “5.00 for me to hit it with a hammer. The other $1000 was for knowing where to hit.”
<never mind. Bitter and unsuited to GQ.
This past December I went to see my doctor, complaining about various symptoms, who then sent me for lab test. He called me at home and ordered me to the ER. My blood sugar was 900+, and I was admitted. I spent a week in the hospital. My total bill was $23,000. Because the hospital I was admitted to was a preferred provider, that bill was reduced to a little under $19,000 which my insurance picked up about $15,000. Did I mention I pay for my insurance out of pocket?
That sounds pretty low to me.
A couple of years ago, my husband had half a dozen surgeries on his wrist. The last one alone was over $16000, and that was as an outpatient.
I’m having panicky flashbacks to that year.