vgg

According to Elisabeth Rosenthal’s New York Times article: “As Hospital Prices Soar; a Stich Tops $500,” a little childhood accident costs more than just a scar on the forehead. With numbers taken from the chargemaster of Sutter hospitals in California, the prices for standard and/or timely procedures has skyrocketed. The reason, in the opinion of health and economic professors in the state of California, is to make money. Throughout the article, Rosenthal compares prices from California Pacific Medical Center with the market prices. It is as drastic as a pill of Tylenol, sold to the facility as fifty cents a pop, is sold to patients for as high as $36.78. The price is a combination of the price of the pill and the price of the physician or nurse delivering the medication to the client’s room and having them take it. It would be much easier, and cheaper, to take care of the medications themselves. In fact, many people mentioned in the article, Amy Bernstein, for example, chose to avoid the cost of stitch removal, and did it herself. This increasingly growing trend can be worrisome, however. Doctors are professionals in medical endeavors, and with people attempting to do such procedures themselves could lead to further and direr complications. Not only is it simpler procedures and medicines that have been pushing the wallet. The article states, “$32,901 for an X-ray study of the heart’s arteries to $25,646.88 for gall bladder removal (doctor’s fees not included) to $5,510 for a simple vaginal delivery (not including $731 for each hour of labor, or $137 for each bag of IV fluid).” These figures are from the California Pacific Medical Center. These outrages numbers are allowed because hospital fees have essentially no constraints wh... ... middle of paper ... ...The emergency room should be a safe place where someone can go to seek immediate care without having to worry about getting gypped. It is a right as a person to find a place of refuge for health reasons; it is a reason where doctors are sent over to countries with disasters to help the people, because they have a right to be taken care of when they cannot do it themselves. You do not see Red Cross charging thousands of dollars to repair wounded limbs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and there is good reason for not doing so. In the end, it is important to see the flaws in our medical service industry so we can mend it. As an American, and in many respects a person, to be given help to continue or improve life without being sucked dry of funds. Charities do help with hospital needs, and if we stop with the unnecessary amenities that will be enough for us all.