A female student at Stanford University Hospital in the United States underwent heart surgery. She was discharged from the hospital shortly after the surgery and ended up with a bill of 1.7 million dollars. Why is health care so expensive in the United States? It is unclear what kind of surgery she was undergoing. If it was a complex new type of cardiovascular surgery, it could be very expensive indeed. But if it's a normal routine procedure, like a regular heart stent, it should be tens of thousands of dollars.
First of all, it's clear from the fact that this female student had no insurance. In the U.S., not having insurance means she may have to pay the full cost of her medical care. In general, there are a lot of people who are "sick of it". Insurance companies are very familiar with these "tricks" that people don't know about. With an insurance company, you can reduce your costs by 20-40%. This is not a small amount, and if you do not have insurance, you can also get a discount through bargaining, but it is relatively difficult.
Secondly, training for doctors in the US is expensive. Medical education is the first of all specialties. Depending on the difficulty of the specialty, some specialties have a study period of up to 8 years, so there will be high educational loans. In order to support themselves, many medical students have to work while attending school. This shows that there is no difficulty in producing more qualified medical students if they are not from well-off, wealthy families. In addition, the American Medical Association strictly controls the issuance of medical licenses every year. This ultimately leads to a scarcity of doctors in the United States, the price of the entire profession is raised, and the social status of doctors is raised.
? In the United States, many doctors choose to open their own clinics. The United States is a society of laws. For the general public, the law is strict. If a doctor in private practice doesn't curry favor with insurance companies and lawyers, you should wait for a lawsuit with your patients. As a result, a large portion of their income should go to pay for high attorney's fees and insurance premiums, which add further to the costs. The cost of doctors raises the cost of healthcare.