By Brittany Hunter:
Between the late 1990s and 2016, the cost of hospital and related services in the US rose by more than 177 percent. This has sparked concern, and rightfully so, that too many Americans are going without care due to skyrocketing costs.
The cost of LASIK surgery, on the other hand, has dropped by 44 percent over the years. In 1998, when LASIK was becoming more common in the US, it cost a patient about $2,500 per eye. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $4,000 per eye in today’s economy.
A primary reason that costs of medical care have risen so steeply since 1998 is because third parties, like Medicaid, Medicare, private health insurance, Veterans Affairs, etc., now pay a large share of these costs. Since the actual patients are not footing the bill, many have no idea how much a procedure actually costs.
Read more: FEE.org
