Hmmm... from Jerry Pournelle's blog

[daveon]

The way to lower prices is to increase supply, or decrease demand. 

OR reduce costs.

A multipage, itemised invoice from the hospital for M's operation doesn't come keep.  Nor, I suspect do the army of admins I see moving files in my Doctor's office. 

Comments

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Oddly when I went privvit in the UK there was v. little paperwork bar the cheque, but to be fair they were both fairly atomic things - seeing a consultant, and an MRA. However no insurance was involved (though I did get most of the money back via a friendly society).

[daveon.livejournal.com]

The paperwork associated with seeing a Doctor here is amazing. Every visit generates a bill which is then cross referenced with the insurance and the amount you pay versus the insurance payments. Every script has the same and so on and so forth. You generate reams of paper just with a couple of check ups a year.