My fondness for medical dramas, medical mysteries, medical documentaries, plague thrillers and the like doubtless has its genesis in shows like Doctor Kildare and Ben Casey (I liked Kildare better because Casey’s arms were too hairy.  I was very young).

These days as a consumer of Modern Medicine(tm), I’m frequently awed by all the cool stuff they can do, the extraordinary leaps medical science has made in my lifetime.  But I was reminded of another leap while reading a TV Guide that Sarcasm Girl brought me back from her vacation.  It had Illya Kuryakin on the cover (I was young, okay?) and listings of television shows from 1965 that I barely remember (and others I remember embarrassingly well). There was also a bound-in ad for medical insurance.  It notes in tones of alarm that the average cost of an overnight stay in the hospital had doubled in ten years.  From $18.35 to $36.83.

So I got curious: what’s the average cost of an overnight stay nowadays?  Granted, it’s forty years later, and nothing I know of has gotten less expensive.  But I googled about, and the best estimate I could find was around $1000 a night.  I assume that is not including tests, medication, surgical and medical services and soap in the shower: just the room with all its cool technology, and the nurses and orderlies and support staff.

I do understand the concept of overhead, of the hospital having to pay electricity and water bills and the salaries of everyone from the CEO to the janitor.  To keep the paint fresh and make sure the rooms are dust-free and the linens changed.  And I know that the new, cool technology comes with large price tags.  But holy hats.  27 times the 1965 cost, just for a night in the hospital.

Jane Eyre had it right: “I must keep very well and not die.”