How can one justify this kind of vicious exploitation of publicly funded healthcare?
Each part is traceable from all raw materials to finished product
Each part is manually tested/calibrated
Each part may be tested with non-destructive testing (x-ray, ultrasound, dye crack inspection etc)
For every lot of parts, several parts will be tested destructively
Each part comes with liability, so the manufacturer will likely purchase liability insurance
Also, the regulatory costs are paid years in advance of a single unit being sold. Once the device is approved (that is, if it's approved at all), the units are sold slowly over years. So the regulatory costs must be financed.
Absolutely. Why does the "financing" in this case have to go through a hospital's purchasing department? The obvious reason for why they charge such incredible amounts per unit is because they can. If there was any amount of competition or marketplace for it, it would be cheaper. There clearly isn't.
Explain to me how this way of doing things is not holding the public hostage.
Seems like these things that were 3D printed could be. At least at a marginal cost.
There are tons of medical devices that are low enough volume that most hospitals don't even have a single unit. There's a reason why we have hospitals with varying levels of status, capabilities, and specialties. There are fairly common surgeries that require equipment that only exists in 2 or 3 digit quantities in the entire world.
They are hideously expensive because so few are bought.
My point is that people saying that it is overpriced don't understand the input costs of medical devices.
That's two numbers relating to the cost of production. The second is the cost that a 3D printer doing one off prints actually costs (it's in the article, as a rough estimate.) The first number is a deliberately chosen "insane" example figure to show the absurdity of an $11,000 part. A medical test n license for a single part of a device does not cost anything like $100M.
Now as to the market for these things - the third number. Nearly 8,000 people have died so far. I can't be arsed to extrapolate further but I recall reading that these are single use devices.
And the fact that they are threatening to sue for something they couldn't sell is disgusting.