Public option aside: The medical industry’s cost to consumers has risen far more than any other?
Question by Brandon J: Public option aside: The medical industry’s cost to consumers has risen far more than any other?
instance of business (discloses government spending). What would you attribute this to? Here are some possible answers, but I’m not really sure.
Frivolous Malpractice: Hundreds of millions of dollars a year in unnecessary costs which are spread to the consumer.
Pharmaceutical Companies: The average cost to even introduce medicine on the market per drug is about $ 1,000,000.00. They use vast profits from other drugs to pay for these.
Doctor’s pay: At a hospital with around 100 doctors making an AVERAGE of $ 150,000.00 a year, the cost to pay those doctors runs 1.5 million per year.
Medical School: Medical School puts doctors in debt for years after medical school (when they are
making relatively small amounts of money as interns and residents), forcing their cost of living to be higher and higher in order to pay it off. (increased cost of living increases needed pay)
Insurance Companies: The birth of insurance companies, though noble, allowed some dishonest doctors to charge their losses to the insurance companies through radical increase of prices for treatment normally given directly to the patient at a much lower cost. This practice became more wildly acceptable over the course of decades and is now commonly applied to increase of costs across the board (wages to equipment) (This is the one I believe in the least, because it seems to be a consequence of high cost, rather than a strong reason)
Medical Equipment
Medical Equipment requires high cost due to the research needed to develop it. This makes a machine that normally would cost a few thousand to make from scratch sell for several million dollars a peice. The problem is that the price doesn’t decline (or doesn’t decline by much) once research and development is paid off.
Which of these (or any others) are key contributors to the gigantic cost of health care, which contribute very little if anything, and are there any I missed?
Tally of contributing factors,
1 for medical school, 1 against doctors (doctors are not to blame for high prices)
Best answer:
Answer by rahooligan
don’t blame doctors. they are probably one of the few professions that actually deserves the pay they get. it takes at least 12 years of schooling after high school just to become a doctor. not to mention how expensive medical school is. the stress of getting in and simply passing medical school is too intense for the average person. not to mention they save lives.
What do you think? Answer below!