Another little story about how much "padding" I think goes into medical charges:

A friend of mine is a veterinarian. I saw him one evening and he said he was tired, he'd been spaying dogs all afternoon. He did about 12 dogs at $75 bucks a pop, so he said he made good money that day.

I poured him a beer and asked him if that wasn't the same operation as when a woman gets "fixed". He said, yep - it's the same thing.

"How much", I asked, "do they charge human patients for that operation?"

He said "Oh, about $3500 or so. Those MD's and hospitals have really got it made".

"Did ya ever have a dog die, because of that operation?"

"Nope. In fact, humans would be easier to do. Big dogs are easy. It's the little dogs that are hard to operate on because everything is so small. And hey - a lot of womens' bellies aren't as hairy as the dogs' bellies."

From there, the conversation kinda deteriorated into beer drinking.

Now, I'm not saying that humans should get the same level of medical care as animals. But the point is - if a guy can make real good money doing that operation (with 100% safety) for $75, well, $3500 is sure a helluva lot more money for the same job.