Business Opportunities Weblog

Health Care Gets Cheaper When The Consumer Pays For It Directly

By on November 23, 2004 in Ideas

Marginal Revolution:

Laser eye surgery has the highest patient satisfaction ratings of any surgery, it has been performed more than 3 million times in the past decade, it is new, it is high-tech, it has gotten better over time and… laser eye surgery has fallen in price. In 1998 the average price of laser eye surgery was about $2200 per eye. Today the average price is $1350, that’s a decline of 38 percent in nominal terms and slightly more than that after taking into account inflation.

Why the price decline in this market and not others? Could it have something to do with the fact that laser eye surgery is not covered by insurance, not covered by Medicaid or Medicare, and not heavily regulated? Laser eye surgery is one of the few health procedures sold in a free market with price advertising, competition and consumer driven purchases. I’m seeing things more clearly already.

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Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,208 posts to the site.

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  • John Henry

    Having had laser eye surgery over 6 years ago, when it cost better than $4,000 per eye and insurance didn’t cover a single penny of the process, I would still do it again in a heart beat, just to see all the sights I had missed in my life, like tile grout in the shower or your mother’s face in the morning.

    Thanks for making me remember what it was like to not see your face clearly on all those campouts when you helped me remove and insert my contact lenses. You don’t know how I appreicated your assistance.

  • http://www.business-opportunities.biz Dane Carlson

    You’re welcome.

    I was thinking of all the times we had to crawl around on the floor looking for a dropped contact lense when I posted this.

  • http://www.afab.nl/ financieringen

    Hi, I think you are totally right. Great! – :) Susan.

  • http://http:/www.pajournal.com Health Resources

    I like that perspective on it. I have to think about that and get back after I have had a chance to think about it more.

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