If I could I would: I would somehow set up a way around the professionals that take advantage day after day and year after year of the Church of God working families. In our area of about 300,000 there are dozens and dozens of eye doctors, audiologists and dentists.They all charge exorbitant price’s and when you really look behind the scene, they have a price fixing system. Think for a moment about the kind of money that CoG members, including their families pay out just for these three services. And that is just to take care of us from the neck up. One man I know shopped for glasses last week. One place wanted $ 1,400.00 after shopping around he found some for $ 750.00. A ridiculous price! Dentists are now making $ 1,000.00 per hour and up. A man I talked to the other day paid $ 4,000.00 for his hearing aid.These little devices are not nearly as complex as a T V or a Cell phone. An old sage once said; ” the professional is always against the layman ” and I think it is truer than ever. If you followed the money you would find that it is the system out there that keeps our churches poor. When you consider the above plus the hundreds of commercials the people listen to each week for cars, furniture, etc., you wonder how they manage to bring anything to the storehouse.
I have a short trip to a developing country coming up. I’m thinking of getting a dental cleaning and a filling if I have the time and opportunity and I can get past the language barrier. I’ve gotten a filling for about $10 in Indonesia before, in the early 2000’s. Of course, one dentist also put in a temporary filling without telling me it was temporary, so that one cost about $20. You also have to tell them to use novacain or they’ll drill without it.
Some of the Indian reservations make money with gambling. Since the reservation government operates kind of like a state government, what they could do, if they could get the visas for them, is import doctors from overseas. Even in some of the developed countries, doctors tend to make a lot less money. That could be a way to decrease some medical costs, import medical personal to increase the supply of doctors. The US could get them from countries with good educational systems like the UK, Germany, Japan, etc. I think the medical associations in many country try to keep out foreign competition with their requirements and the governments go along with it.
High doctors’ salaries aren’t the only expense. They have to pay malpractice insurance. Plenty of people sue. Plenty of juries are willing to give the ‘little guy’ a large settlement from the medical establishment. Nurses and other medical personnel also make large salaries since they perform functions that doctors are too expensive to perform and it has driven up their salaries.
Lots of good points.