One thing that has long bugged me about how medicine is practiced in the United States is that medical professionals for the most part have no idea how much stuff costs.   Doctors prescribe medications that their patients cannot afford to buy—even when cheaper alternatives are available.  We order tests not knowing what the patient is going to be charged.

This phenomenon occurs nowhere else in American culture.  It is kind of odd when you think about it.  It would be like going to the grocery store and having no prices on any of the food.  You could only get the meat that the butcher recommended, but he wouldn’t know the price of anything, either.   The first inkling you would have about costs would be when you got your bill in the mail a month later:  “Wow—that chuck roast was $200.00 a pound!” Continue reading →