Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
OK, now I'm confused. Here you wrote $30 but up above you wrote $30K, which was what I was responding to in asking about the disparity. Did they refer to it as a sort of "honorarium"? That's a fancy name for a fee, from what I've heard. Whatever it was, how'd your father-in-law do with his treatment?

I'm afraid that fact about the wealthy in China getting treatment and the poor not being able to is likely to still be the case here, too, even if we get a new health care system. I'm afraid that's one of the unfair bottom-line inequities, and my gut tells me it won't change here, either. At least not in a lot of cases.
Sorry, it was $30K. I think they refered to it as something like a facilitating charge. The doc claimed it was needed to get everything, and everybody, scheduled and ready quickly. probably a bit of truth to it but I'm sure a huge portion went into the doc's pocket.

The problem with health care is that it all boils down to economics (supply and demand). The supply of doctors who can do something like delicate liver surgury or open heart surgury is not that large. Medicine and medical talent are a limited resource, like oil or a new iPOD. So, if you have twenty people needing a triple bypass and enough docs/facilities/etc to do 10 of them, how do you choose? Typically it comes down to who has the most money. Even in a country with socialized medicine, this is often still the case. Maybe not from a strict affordability of the service point of view, but a nice donation always goes a long way in moving your name up on the schedule.