Re: American Health care: $10,169 for a blood test?

This is how the greedy insurance companies are squeezing the hard working American citizen. Forget about the blood test, every single type of medical treatment in the US costs as much as 500 to 1,000% more than what it costs in the EU. A surgery which costs $100,000 in the US can be performed for just $15,000 in Belgium, or $10,000 in Russia. Only one solution for this. Nationalize the healthcare sector.

You also have to wait a lot longer to get the same procedures, sometimes resulting in a surgery being unnecessary because the patient has either died or the problem has become so severe that surgery would not be effective.

I don't think you understand that if you make these things cost less unilaterally then the people who perform these services will ultimately get paid less which would mean less people would enter the field and those that do enter the medical field will be less qualified.

Don't go to board UNcertified doctors.

5 years ago I would have agreed with you.

I am boarded and am re-certifying my boards this year. It's basically extortion by the medical establishment and doesn't really focus on ensuring physicians meet any standards of care since lot of the stuff in the boards is stuff that is not pertinent to real world application.

I would recommend having a malpractice attorney do a little digging for $50 or $100 and they can find out quickly what suits any physicians has been involved in. State Medical Boards are pretty much useless. Hire a private attorney if you want to know a physician's history.

The only reason I am retaking my boards is because I need to be boarded to keep my license in CA. Otherwise the boards are just a scam. A physician who keeps up with modern CMEs and attends meetings at the local hospital will be more up to date that one who just passes test after test without any meaningful understanding of population and demographic changes.