On 8/11/2011 2:30 PM, Gordon Shumway wrote:
On 11 Aug 2011 18:03:29 GMT, wrote:

wrote in news:a8552c7c-5604-4c2e-8a14-
:

Reasonableness. I'm sorry that the pendulum has swung way in the
opposite direction butt he fact of the matter is that is has.
Adjust.

I have hardly ever complained about the salary I was getting.
Considering what it takes around here to live, a real cut in disposable
income for my kids here is a hardship. They would live, even if I didn't
help, but they would definitely spend less. And the real issue is why
healthcare costs are so crazy in the US, compared to elsewhere.
Example:

I broke my leg while on vacation in Holland (Wed, 7/7/10, ~10:30 AM). An
ambulance crew picked me up and brought me to the local ER, where they
determined that both tibia and fibula were badly cracked just above my
ankle to halfway up my lower leg. A trauma orthopedic surgeon said he
needed to operate right away and put "plates" and screws in my leg.
Operation was done and by 2:30 I was out of recovery in a semiprivate
hospital room. On Friday afternoon I was released, and was told it was
OK to travel by train to Paris on Saturday. Followup care here in Jersey
had the orthopedist amazed at the techniques used by the Dutch surgeon.
For the hospital stay including ambulance, OR, anesthesia and
medications, the total bill was less than 10K. It's difficult to compute
because of the changing exchange rates around that time. Luckily my
insurance paid except for a $250 deductible. Of course, no one but me
paid for my exchanging my tourist class seat for a first class one, so I
could keep my leg elevated during the flight to Newark. I'd love to know
what a similar operation and hospital stay would have cost hereabouts.

The main reason for our high healthcare costs is the need for
malpractice insurance coverage for the medical community. Eliminate
that from the equation and our costs would be significantly lower.

I guess the bottom feeding lawyers are the legal systems counterpart
to the anointed ones desire to redistribute the wealth.

That truly is a big expense however if you take the insurance out of the
equation and every one would benefit. Think about a doctors office that
has a department/staff for simply collecting payment from the insurance
company. Then look at the big discounts that the insurance company gets.