With all this Health Care Reform in the news lately I can't help wondering a little about how much all these Doctors, tests, x-rays, scans, etc. costs. Do they really need to charge as much as they do? In recent years the prices have skyrocketed to say the least.

Here where I live a few years ago one could expect to pay $100-$125 for a standard family doctor office call. For some reason after a brand new facility was built where a lot of these Doctors practice at the fee jumped to $180-$225 for the same standard family doctor. Coincidence? I wonder if the brand new facility had something to do with it.

Same with a CT scan for example. Not to long ago it cost $800-$1000 now it costs almost $3000! I know these CT machines are very expensive, but I have a feeling at that price they will pay for it the first couple of months of operation or less.

It just amazes me how these things can go up so much in such a short amount of time, yet most normal people's wages don't go up anywhere near this amount or rate.

Medical seems to be the most drastic jump, but others have gone up considerably too.

Take the car mechanic for example. Not long ago I was paying $35-$40 per hour for labor. Now I am paying $60-$80 per hour for the same mechanic. This is ridiculous. The car makers don't help either with the way they build cars these days. They make cars in a way that the mechanic has to spend an hour removing other parts just to get to the part he or she needs to fix. Then, another hour putting the parts they had to remove back together. So the 30 minute repair, ends up taking 2 1/2 hours and costing me $150 to $200 in labor alone and that is figuring low in terms of time.