An article , I stumbled upon recently discusses why American health care is in deep trouble. There is a huge variation in the health care costs across the country. The article goes on to reveal , a simple Appendicectomy can cost anywhere between 7500 to 1,70000 $ in different hospitals in USA. (In India it costs 1000 $ in any star hospital !)
The fundamental flaw is treatment being the same , it is delivered in such a fashion , the cost incurred is kept ridiculously high.
It is akin to comparing a 10 dollar lunch to a 1000 dollar feast , both ultimately fulfills a purpose , relive the hunger effectively
while , the later can damage the country’s economy in a variety of ways !
https://www.massdevice.com/blogs/massdevice/anatomy-walletectomy
Car makers automate the industry with Robots to reduce the human labor and cost of a vehicle , while medical industry does the opposite . . . privileged few get their appendix removed with a help of metal hand !
Final message
Modern medicine must aim to improve the quality of care with a positive impact at a reasonable cost . In the name of cutting edge technologies , it should not raise the medical bill in a meaningless fashion .This is meager exploitation of human suffering.
It is hilarious to note certain medical Robots* are primarily made to assist surgeon for which no assistance is required at all ! (I heard a story about a Robot which responds to voice command and pass on a knife for cutting and a gauze for wiping ! What a great medical discovery !)
Disclaimer
* Of course Robots (Cyber knifes ) may have a role in some rare surgeries which require high precision cutting especially in Neuro , Vascular , oncological surgeries.
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Dr.S.Venkatesan MD 