On the gold standard at 1oz / $35, that cost you .378 ounces. An ounce today will run you $800, which gives you a $300 office bill for your elbow.

EU, I couldn't agree more about the prescriptions.

My dad is forced to pay $25 a month in co-pays (plus gas, wasted time, etc.) in order to go to his doctor to get his prescriptions renewed.

He's been on Lescol for the last decade.

Why can't he just buy a year's supply of the drugs at a time? Alternatively, why can't he just buy this stuff straight from a pharmacist?

I understand putting a barrier between consumers and Oxycontin. But who gives a damn about cholesterol medicine? Why is this something that primary care doctors need to be involved with on a monthly basis?

Once the doctor has decided that you should be on a drug, you shouldn't need monthly checkups to get it renewed. Your cholesterol level doesn't drop off a cliff after one month of using the medication. Acid reflux disease is a chronic condition. It's not going to suddenly disappear one day.

And if your condition changes, you can go to your doctor. But wasting the doctor's time with writing prescriptions does a huge disservice to society.

Let them quit. They'll be trading their services for chickens soon enough.

I am somewhat cynical here:

It does a great and often vital service to a doctor.

Using mattduke's calculation above, the doctor should be able to charge at least 60 whole chickens for one fooked up elbow. That, of course, assumes the demand for whole chickens remains level. Something's out of whack here (not just the elbow)...

The system of underrewarding primary practice physicians and overrewarding specialists is part of the total problem, but only a modest part as I see it.

The barriers to and costs of medical education are now completely out of whack with reality and needs.

Also, the laws that protect physicians' business interests (and the interests of allied health care personnel, such as pharmacists) are beginning to severely crimp the access of the public to basic health care.

There is way too much turf-guarding among the medical professions, backed up by the aforementioned laws the medical lobbies have pushed through Congress. Turf equals money.

We need a system slanted more toward training average people to fix average ailments, and not toward training elite personnel to treat the exotic diseases of the elite.

If I am skilled at rendering first aid and can have that skill certified, I should not be legally blocked from rendering that care to people who desperately need it and cannot afford to get it from the system currently in place.

Ultimately the problem is for-profit health care. The two are incompatible when it comes to providing basic care affordably to all people, which has been declared a human right by the UN.

Health care is already rationed. But it is not rationed rationally.

I am not sure how happy this will make people when they have to go to the doctor and it's going to cost them $400.00 for a single visit or $800.00 for an annual "physical."

Sure hope no one has to visit the doctor 3 times in a month or they won't be able to eat.

American doctors like being the gatekeepers. it's much much much more profitable, for them.

the end result is more stress for the patient.

Why would it cost $400 to see a Doctor for a 1/2 hr vist?

My wife occasionally suffers from a skin rash. She has since she was a child. It causes discomfort, but there is a creme that treats it. She had a case of it in Mexico once. We went to the store and bought a tube of the creme in about 2 minutes. Here in the US we would first have to see a doctor. If we disobeyed, the government would hurt us. What a remarkably pleasant experience, to be free.

Approximately 7 years ago an "American" soon to be family member (fiance of a cousin) had to go to the emergency room because he had terrible flu. Cost before medication was $450.00 CAD because he had no Health Care card.


The basic cost for a non-insured Canadian to see a doctor is $400.00 and for a physical because it requires more time is approximately $800.00.

The sad truth is when everyone is insured everyone pays for it whether they use it 1 time or 50 times in a year. (speaking of Canada) If you have a "pay as you go doctor" I have no problem with that and there should be two systems in place, however in Canada that is illegal. (yes, we are really socialists at heart) A clinic opened here in Winnipeg offering ultrasounds because there was a huge backup for them at hospitals but charged for them. Their reasoning was if people really needed them they wouldn't worry to pay for them. And they were right! They charged the going "Medicare" rate. The government quickly swooped in calling them "substandard, unsafe" and "not recognized by the establishment" and illegal, even though they were being done by doctors and trained professionals. Wow! That's all I said. Even thought it would save lives and people had a choice, it was still illegal.

The long and short of it is if all the doctors quit and there is no pooled options or if all the doctors stay and there is no "private" options it's not good. It has to be a mix of both. Americans, you should embrace some "universal health care" AND "private care" and have a choice. We have to do the same.

Only if you assume the price of chickens will remain stable. In the absense of industrial-scale farming, I predict the value of chickens to rise substantially.

Well, I had a serious skin problem leading to ER visits, lengthy and expensive antibiotics treatments for years in the United States with no effect whatsoever... I can´t even calculate the full cost and the suffering...

One visit to a doctor in Brazil (covered by full private insurance of about US$70 per person per month with no deductables and great hospital and doctor network) lead to a US$3 per tube medication prescription (non-antibiotic) that effectivly took care of the problem for good within weeks.

Doctors here actually talk to patients and take extensive health histories, there are no waiting rooms in medical offices.... Third world indeed, they haven´t figured out yet how to run their medicine as a business

Sure. Lets start with $150,000 in student loans. Then we'll add in $30,000 a year for malpractice. That x-ray machine probably runs at least $100,000 these days. You want to try to pay that all off making $13 an hour? Have at it.

I'll say "Who are 'People who like having a functioning liver'" for $800 Alex.

Got to love that condescending physician attitude. I had to show proof of age last time I bought some freakin cough medicine.