Health Care Economics

BenS sent me this:

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics

with the same complaint:



Both have trouble walking

and appear to require a hip replacement.



The first patient is examined within the hour, is

x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for

surgery the following week.



The second sees his family doctor after waiting a

week for an appointment, then waits eight weeks to see a

specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed

for another week, and finally has his surgery

scheduled for six weeks from then.



Why the different treatment for the two patients?



The first is a golden retriever.

The second is a senior citizen.

Of course if this had happened in Canada, the senior citizen would still be waiting...



Update: Former student, Mike Moffat has some issues with this, but I disagreed with him in the comments to his posting. He extrapolates from one scenario to claim that the price elasticity of demand is low, and he implicitly assumes a low price elasticity of supply.