This PowerPoint presentation should be perceived in the same spirit as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. My presentation is meant to be a satire-- both informative and humorous.

1. Hospitals
Why do they charge so much?
Mock Newscast Assignment
By Kim Crone

2.  Hospitals…why do they charge so much and why do
we pay those amounts?

3.  Here’s a story for you. This little girl fell from a couch
and split her forehead open on a table, so she went
to the hospital.
 All they did was seal her cut with a dab of glue. Then
they got the bill. The family was billed for one
thousand six hundred and ninety six dollars!

4.  They could’ve glued her head with this
and saved one thousand six hundred and ninety four
dollars. This must really be some super glue.

5. What is it made from, a past Kentucky Derby winner? Like that would justify the
cost? Hey, I see Chef Guy Fieri standing behind that Kentucky Derby winner.

6.  I wonder if he’s thinking about what’s going to
happen to this animal after it goes to horsie heaven. My guess is
glue’s not on his mind. Listen, if you eat at one of Guy Fieri’s
restaurants, you might want to ask if you burger was once named

7.  Bessie or Sea Biscuit.

8.  No two hospitals charge the same amount for the same
treatment even if they’re from the same town. Case in
point…one Tylenol with
codeine pill costs fifty cents. If you take just one at the
hospital, it will cost you thirty seven dollars. For that
amount, you’d think it would do more than take the
edge off your pain and make you more drowsy, right?

9.  Jeez, I hope so. It should really be doing this…

10.  Hospitals are the largest drivers of
medical inflation. The most expensive hospitals charge more than twelve
thousand and five hundred dollars a day!

11.  Look at this guy.
Well, he gets a roof over his head, tasteless food and an uncomfortable
bed. Know what he doesn’t get? Rest! And that’s because a nurse
wakes him up every half hour to take his blood pressure. [Mimic nurse
voice] Your blood pressure’s a little high. [Regular voice]. No (bleep),
that’s because you keep waking me up and pissing me off,

12. Nurse Ratched!

13. It’s no wonder somebody flew over the cuckoo’s nest!

14.  Okay, most people have health insurance. But even
so, they’re still socked with copays and huge
deductibles. Warren Browner, CEO
from California Pacific Medical Center, said there
are good reasons why patients are charged so
much. It’s because they have highly trained
professionals available twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. They have to constantly
upgrade to the latest equipment to

15. meet patient’s expectations. But you know what, studies haven’t
found a link between prices and patient outcomes. Shocker. And
there are no market restrictions, so they can pretty much bill
whatever they want.

16.  Between you and me, I think the money coming from
insurance companies and patients is going straight to
these CEOs.
We’d really hate to see them have to live in squalor now, wouldn’t we?

17. Hospitals have something they call a chargemaster price list, which keeps
track of how much money a patient racks up. Everyone should double
check this list.

18.  Remember what I said earlier about that little girl
who had her forehead glued? One of the charges was for five hundred and
twenty nine dollars. It was listed on the chargemaster list as “supplies and
devices.” The family later found out it was for the gauze wrapped around
the kid’s head…

19. which had a Hello Kitty sticker.
Talk about sticker shock! This
could’ve been bought at the
drug store for under a dollar. I
think hospitals should take a
cue from restaurants and
become a BYOB…

20.  bring your own bandages!!
So hospitals can set prices as high as they want. Who else can do that?
Let’s say Olive Garden decided to charge for each bread stick separately.

21. What if they wanted to charge thirty-five dollars for each bread
stick? Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s because it is!
The biggest difference between hospitals and Olive Garden is
that hospitals demand a lot more dough than bread sticks.
We’ll be right back.