Save money on your health care by going to Europe
Orthopedic Surgery is Cheaper in Belgium, a country with �Socialized Medicine� than the USA Kudos to the Seattle Times for outing the medical device supply mafia in their August 5 th story on a patient who was able to save money for his hip replacement by going to a European country with a national health care system. And low and behold, this story was front page news for today�s New York Times. [1] Here are the facts, the federal government, through the CMS or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pay for most of the hip replacements in the United States. This is a multi-billion dollar industry which generates huge profits for a few companies in Indiana. How can a device that costs $350 to produce be sold for $3,000 to $4,000 in the U.S. market? The answer is, because we allow it. Medical device manufacturers, including cardiac devices and others are all guilty of price gouging in this country, because as a people we have not demanded that our government funded health care plans pay a r...