[thechat] hospital costs
Martin Burns
martin at easyweb.co.uk
Thu Sep 28 00:37:41 CDT 2006
On 26 Sep 2006, at 20:40, Kevin Stevens wrote:
> I'm glad someone else mentioned how expensive the stay was, just
> over $3,000
> a day! I know tests are expensive, £180 for an X-ray and £900 for
> an MRI
> scan is what I have been billed for, but how can they justify that
> much
> money?
Ummm because such things *are* expensive, particularly once you're
paying for
a reasonable building for them to go in, enough staff on hand so you
don't have
to wait 3 months for an appointment etc.
Think of it this way. 23.8% of the income of most UK employees ends
up in
National Insurance contributions [1]. The income from this falls
about £6bn
short of the total cost of providing NHS healthcare[2]. Think about
how much
that is of your annual income, and that most people don't use NHS-funded
healthcare most of the time. Average cost per day in a hospital is
pretty
high, no matter *who* provides it.
Yes, there'll be profit in what the private hospital charged you. But
maybe
not so much as you'd think.
Cheers
Martin
[1] 11% deducted from the employee, 12.8% contributed by the employer
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?
r.l3=1073867932&r.l2=1073859218&r.l1=1073858808&r.s=sc&type=RESOURCES&it
emId=1073790796
[2] http://budget2006.treasury.gov.uk/page_09.html
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