blah blah blah
Pet care is cheap and unregulated.
People care is expensive and a Government mess.
That happened to me just before I came to Singapore. My job offer was conditional on a very thorough medical checkup - the forms I was sent were pretty frightening. So I called the insurance company, and was given a runaround.
But a friendly nurse at the local blood donor center referred me to a GP, so I went to him with the pack of forms. He frowned, and asked whether my insurance would cover all this. I told him I was coming as a private patient, and suddenly he was all smiles.
He did the basic stuff - blood pressure, pulse, taking blood sample and urine sample - while his receptionist booked the visits to the specialists. That was three visits to two hospitals - one for an EKG, one for an upper body X-ray, and one at the second hospital for an "abdominal sonogram", which I had never heard of, but which uses sound to scan liver, kidneys, pancreas &c.
That all took 2.5 days, and on the third afternoon the GP gave me the forms, all filled in, and the total bill.
Take a deep breath. The total was less than $600. Yes, if you pay privately you are treated like a prince and billed like a pauper.
I have made this observation before, but will say it again: every government subsidy enacted for consumers is captured by producers. The costs don't go down, but the profits go up. It is a game the average citizen cannot win.