Americans spend about $34 billion annually on alternative medicine. OK, sure, that’s only about 1% of what Americans spend on real medicine but it’s still an awfully big number. How much actual medicine could you buy with that much money? Let’s find out…
The Mayo Clinic’s annual expenses are about $7.5 billion. Of course, their revenue is about the same amount. But, with $34 billion, you could run more than four Mayo Clinics and not charge your patients a single dime!
There are about 6,000 hospitals in the US, so you could replace each with fresh one every two years or so.
Of course, there are only 60,000 pediatricians in the US, so you’d have to quadruple their salaries.
I did a bit of back-of-the envelope calculations and it looks like $34 billion would take care of all the recommended pediatric vaccinations (MMR, DTap, Hib, etc.) in the US, thirty times over.
That’s a total of 255,000,000,000 Band Aids – enough to cover one boo-boo every ten days on each person on the planet.
Oh and by an odd coincidence, that $34 billion dollar figure is about the same as the total budget for the National Institutes of Health. Guess which one’s the better deal? Yup.
Thank you! I love comparisons like this; it allows people to see things in perspective.