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February 7, 2010In early 1999, shortly after LASIK was first approved by the FDA, the average price for the procedure was about $2,100 per eye. By the end of 2005, it had fallen about 20% to $1,687. Innovators have also responded to the demand for the service by developing a newer and more precise LASIK technology called "wavefront-guided" LASIK. Naturally, they charge more for this better, more accurate technology, but not much more than the standard procedure originally cost.
Between 1999 and 2004, by contrast, overall annual health expenditures per person in the U.S. increased to nearly $6,300 from $4,400, and the increase is being felt acutely by employers and their workers.
Please help Barack Hussein Obama figure out the most important question about health care reform : how to keep the price down. Offer your theory.
Becasue this is the free market at work.
Government regulated private insurance does not pay for it.
Medicare does not pay for it.
Medicade does not pay for it.
If you want this procedure you have to come up with the money and pay for it out of your own pocket. This allows the free market to work at its best.
Horaayy..there are 9 comment(s) for me so far ;)
Because neither insurance nor government programs cover it.
Hmm.
I think you are onto something.
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Supply and demand. OOPS people on here don’t know anything about economics and capitalism. They still believe in BHO and the fairy leaving quarters under their pillow.
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Amazing what the market can do when the government stays out of it, isn’t it?
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Because it is a high demand optional procedure that is fairly easy to perform. The number of places you can have this done is increasing greatly, so prices will fall..
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because
A. it’s not very invasive
B. it’s mainly technology driven
basically, the reasons it was so costly were different from the reasons most care is costly… (it’s invasive, could be dangerous, needs high level of expertise)
if you could find a way to give a very low risk heart transplant, quickly on an out-patient basis… we wouldn’t have a problem…
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Because they market to the customers. They aren’t tampered with by the insurance companies.
If we all started cash flowing standard medical expenses, and insured for major medical events, we could all save a ton of money. And prices would go down.
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Because it isn’t a life saving procedure, that ends up putting you out of work for a year and forcing you to file bankruptcy on the medical bills.
When a person files bankruptcy on a bill, it causes losses to the company, which raises its prices on everyone else who can afford to pay.
That is how business works. Its called accounting. When you find it costs you more to provide a good or service, you raise price.
Shoplifting causes retailers to do the same thing.
Your question is like asking "why has teeth cleaning services not gone up drastically?"
probably because nobody goes into the doctor and is told you must get lasik or you are going to die in 6 months.
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Probably because it is an elective surgery and market forces enter into the equation. Doctors who perform the procedure are competing for business.
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Becasue this is the free market at work.
Government regulated private insurance does not pay for it.
Medicare does not pay for it.
Medicade does not pay for it.
If you want this procedure you have to come up with the money and pay for it out of your own pocket. This allows the free market to work at its best.
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