California Pacific Medical Center is part of Sutter Health, a not-for-profit healthcare system. Their CEO, Pat Fry, was paid $4 million in salary and bonuses last year. The money for that has to come from somewhere.
Yes some people in the medical industry make very good money. Usually they have studied for many many years and spent hundreds of thousands on their education and training.
They also work holidays, weekends, nights when other people are with their families.
On top of which the massive regulations for the healthcare industry are astounding. A few hundred thousand pages of various regulations which change constantly. Added on top of a legal system which makes it easy to sue them for any imagined infraction.
The wasted money isn’t in the healthcare system, its in the insurance companies.
I recently had a routine surgery and spent 1 night in a local hospital. The hospital’s bill almost beat me home. For the use of the operating room (1 hour), recovery room (1 hour), and the overnight stay I was billed $15,000. The surgeon and anesthesiologist billed me separately.
I am a member of a Sutter Health group up here in Northern CA. I just went into the emergency room two weeks ago, with a cut. Took 3 stitches, billed me a total of 300 bucks, after insurance it was 12 bucks. That was for about 3 hours lying in the treatment room because the doc was so busy.