I'm from the UK and am amazed at the cost of medical treatment in USA
if one does not have medical insurance.  Just out of interest I'm
looking for information on the total costs per type of injury that I
may have to pay if I am hospitalized and have to pay for my own costs.

I hear that a chest infection costs upwards of $90K; a
miscrodiscectomy costs around $500K; a broken wrist costs around $14K.

I'm looking for a kind of comprehensive list that covers many
different types of injuries/treatments/surgeries, e.g. apendectomy,
heart bypass, heart transplant, pneumonia, AIDS, skin cancer, etc

Thank you

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 30 Mar 2004 17:25 PST

Medical costs vary widely in the United States; a procedure that costs
$10,000 in one location may cost $50,000 elsewhere.

For example: several years ago, I had a surgery in Oklahoma, and one
month later I had exactly the same sort of surgery in Ohio. The Ohio
procedure cost nearly five times as much as the one in Oklahoma.

Where are you going to be staying in the US?

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Clarification of Question by kangaroo700-ga on 30 Mar 2004 20:10 PST

Sorry...I should have said I live in California.  

Also, I is there a web site that has the answers to what I'm looking for?

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Clarification of Question by kangaroo700-ga on 02 Apr 2004 14:51 PST

I appreciate the info provided so far, but it is not really what I'm
looking for.  As I said, I want to know the average cost per
injury/treatment in California.  The links provided didn't contain
much info on what I was looking for.

Are my statements about chest infections costing $90K, broken wrists
costing $14K, etc, accurate, or somewhat accurate?  It is this type of
info I'm looking for.

Thanks again.

This may be of interest:

"Hospitals, doctors, and other medical costs vary throughout the
country, but emergency room care averages about $200 per visit.
Hospital rooms vary in price depending on the hospital and the region
of the country, but currently one overnight stay in a hospital room
averages $200 to $1,000 per day, not including charges for doctors and
other medical services. Maternity care and delivery cost between
$5,000 and $8,000. Overall, national figures indicate that the average
cost for a one-week stay in a U.S. hospital is often as much as
$8,000. In other words, this is about half the cost of attending some
U.S. colleges or universities for an entire year."

http://educationusa.state.gov/predeparture/planning/insurance.htm

This might be somewhat helpful. It's a list of common medical
procedures and the amount that California's Medicaid program
reimburses healthcare providers for each procedure. This is from 2001.
Of course, some providers do not accept the Medicaid reimbursement as
payment in full.

http://www.aap.org/research/medreimpdf01/ca.pdf

Try this site. Has estimated costs of numerous surgeries.

http://www.healthcentral.com/mhc/index/surgidxc.cfm