Re: [OT] I need a reality check

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>

> > The United States Army has long lured recruits with
> > the slogan "Be All You Can Be" but now soldiers and
> > their families can receive plastic surgery,
> > including breast enlargements, on taxpayers' money.
>
> "On tax payer's money"???
>
> BS.  The money is already spent.  The cost of a
> medical procedure is almost entirely invented--you are
> paying for the surgeon's time and hospital fees.
> You're paying for med school loans and malpractice
> insurance and a part of the purchase price of the MRI
> machine and so forth.  Well, the surgeon is on salary
> and the hospital is already purchased, as well as the
> equipment.  It costs the government more or less the
> same whether it is being used or sitting idle in a
> corner.

This argument is incomplete.

First, there must be some costs directly associated with the procedures
(medicines, implant, disposable equipment...)

Second, and probably more important in terms of Dollars, the government
hospitals could offer the service of their surgeons to paying customers,
bringing in revenue.

Indeed, a believer in free-market economy might ask why the long-term
treatment of military personnel (as opposed to urgent in-theater cases)
has
to be done by government institutions at all. Why not do it in private
hospitals, (with the  government paying the bill), which would be more
efficient at it ?

Greetings
Karl  Heinz