Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam
Really:
And this from Canada:
NYC medical prices are 30% to 50% above the national average -- want to share how you paid only $50.00. And if you did -- who do you think pays the rest?
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Sure. I live in Morris Park in the Bronx. Morris Park is known for 2 things: having a big Italian-American community (had the Columbus Day Parade yesterday with Chaz Palminteri as Grand Marshal) and having Montefiori Hospital and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Every Saturday morning, they have free medical consultations, from 8am - 12 noon, for uninsured Bronx residents. The consultation is free, but you have to pay for tests, etc. in cash at cost. They said I needed an MRI of my knee, and refered me to Third Avenue Radiology and Imaging in the South Bronx. Got the MRI and paid cash, $50 which I'm guessing is their actual cost.
So, if MRIs (depending of course which type) really cost $50 - what is a fair price to charge? $500 (10x the amount) doesn't seem fair to me. Of course this is a business and you need to turn a profit. So is 3x fair? Like the way they mark up a bottle of wine in an upscale NYC restaurant?
To me therein lies the root of the problem. The medical arts should be considered a service first, not a business. But it's been that way for too long in the US and will be hard to change.
Maybe medicine should take a page from sports - instead of paying $500 million for the naming rights of a stadium, like AT&T did in Dallas, they could back research for breast cancer and the treatment would be called the AT&T cure for breast cancer.
For such an "advanced" country the US is the world's laughingstock when it comes to medical coverage (and a lot if other things lately).