auditor0007
Gold Member
I just wanted to throw out a couple examples of how much things actually cost. The reason is to ask why. Over the years, my family has had some major health issues, so I have some real experience with the actual costs. Now all of these are from years past, so we can assume prices for the same thing today would be much higher.
In the early 90's my wife had kidney stones. She was in the hospital for five days. Total cost was approximately $20,000. That is an average cost of $4000 per day and included all doctors fees, hospital fees, and so forth.
In 1997, my son was born very premature at 30 weeks, only weighing 3 lbs., 1 oz. He was in NICU for 47 days. Total cost was $230,000 for an average cost of about $4900 per day.
Lastly, in 2001 my wife was diagnosed with leukemia. She went through chemo, which was unsuccessful, then she had a stem cell transplant with her sister as the donor. In the end this also was unsuccessful and she lost her battle after ten months. During the ten months of treatment, she was in and out of the hospital all the time. She spent approximately half of that ten months in the hospital. After her transplant, she spent five weeks in an isolation ward. Anyway, the total cost of her failed treatments was $1.3 million. That averages out to over $4300 per day. However, since she only spent half of those days in actual care, the average per day is really over $8600, and this was nine years ago. She had no surgery. Her doctors saw her for ten minutes per day when she was in the hospital. Otherwise, they maybe saw her once per week. The biggest costs were for the hospital stays.
When I look at these numbers, I have to ask myself why. Why are these costs so much? $8600 per day for a few chemo treatments, a stem cell transplant, and 150 days living in a hotel that serves horrible food? Don't get me wrong; I don't think it should be or could be free, but does $8600 per day sound even remotely reasonable? With that, you could buy a very nice brand new car every three days. In less than a month's time, you could pay for a decent home that you could live in for your entire life. In a week's time at that rate, you could pay for one of your kid's college education. In four or five day's at that rate, you could furnish your entire home.
Anyway, all I'm trying to do here is show how out of whack the costs are in comparison to everything else we purchase, and it most definitely is completely out of whack. Now the question is why and how do we fix it?
In the early 90's my wife had kidney stones. She was in the hospital for five days. Total cost was approximately $20,000. That is an average cost of $4000 per day and included all doctors fees, hospital fees, and so forth.
In 1997, my son was born very premature at 30 weeks, only weighing 3 lbs., 1 oz. He was in NICU for 47 days. Total cost was $230,000 for an average cost of about $4900 per day.
Lastly, in 2001 my wife was diagnosed with leukemia. She went through chemo, which was unsuccessful, then she had a stem cell transplant with her sister as the donor. In the end this also was unsuccessful and she lost her battle after ten months. During the ten months of treatment, she was in and out of the hospital all the time. She spent approximately half of that ten months in the hospital. After her transplant, she spent five weeks in an isolation ward. Anyway, the total cost of her failed treatments was $1.3 million. That averages out to over $4300 per day. However, since she only spent half of those days in actual care, the average per day is really over $8600, and this was nine years ago. She had no surgery. Her doctors saw her for ten minutes per day when she was in the hospital. Otherwise, they maybe saw her once per week. The biggest costs were for the hospital stays.
When I look at these numbers, I have to ask myself why. Why are these costs so much? $8600 per day for a few chemo treatments, a stem cell transplant, and 150 days living in a hotel that serves horrible food? Don't get me wrong; I don't think it should be or could be free, but does $8600 per day sound even remotely reasonable? With that, you could buy a very nice brand new car every three days. In less than a month's time, you could pay for a decent home that you could live in for your entire life. In a week's time at that rate, you could pay for one of your kid's college education. In four or five day's at that rate, you could furnish your entire home.
Anyway, all I'm trying to do here is show how out of whack the costs are in comparison to everything else we purchase, and it most definitely is completely out of whack. Now the question is why and how do we fix it?
