I ama surgeon in MA. I get less than $800 for a hernia repair. That includes all the face time with the patient, explaining everything, doing the procedure and

I ama surgeon in MA. I get less than $800 for a hernia repair. That includes all the face time with the patient, explaining everything, doing the procedure and taking care of him after. The hospital gets $8000 and lets me use a 'special' room for an hour and another 'special' place for a few hours for the patient to 'sleep off' the anaesthesia. The doctor who provides anaesthesia gets <200$ for every 15 minutes. The gases and his machines cost a multiple of that. Hospitals inflate their costs by running red budgets (basically up spending for everything so they can justify higher budgets). A urologist in my facility who does robot surgery gets $1500 to remove a prostate for cancer. The hospital bills $80,000 for the procedure. And cancer surgery is being permitted even though a few weeks' delay will make little difference in the outcome for most cases. The hospital, who rents me my office by the way, is not giving me any breaks on the rent even though my business is down 50% . Even comcast gave me a $100 rebate because my volume is down. Can you imagine hospitals as corporations worse than Comcast? The concept of 'efficiency of scale' does not translate to service industries. The only efficiency that happens is efficiency of funneling more money to higher salaries of higher executives. Hospitals are driven by profit and their incentives do not align with the precepts that led to their formation.