I recently came across a small press release mentioning a health and testing services provider offering steeply discounted services for victims of the recent health care facility disaster in Las Vegas. Testing that is not just available in the Las Vegas area but across the entire nation so that people who might have been affected by this tragedy but no longer live in Las Vegas can get help as well. With a little bit of searching and prodding I found out that Scott Gostyla, the founder of this company had personally made a commitment to lend his company's' resources to help these many distraught individuals.



Now of course, it's easy to give this a jaded shoulder shrug and comment on the good press or possible profit or whatever other hidden motives. Really though, we experience so much bad health care in this country that it is difficult to genuinely appreciate a gesture of someone like Gostyla. Besides I have been working in the medical field for most of my life and I know the cost associated with testing, there are lab fees, dr. fees, nurse fees, administration fees, not to mention that the results have to be stored for years by the company ordering the tests.

The extent to which the U.S. health care system is broken is familiar to most Americans who have ever needed any level of care. The broken administrative bureaucracy alone was responsible for as much as $399.4 billion dollars in expenses as far back as 2003 - an amount so staggering it can only be made understandable as this: health care could be provided to all uninsured Americans for this price.

While most nations with an equivalent economic status have managed to get a grip on providing health care for their citizens, we continue to tolerate a system of outlandish care costs for the uninsured. It doesn't take a hard look to find widespread inadequate hospital hygiene breeding such superbugs as the s. aureus "flesh eating" staph infection (to which there is no satisfactory cure), and the increasingly dramatic shortage of nurses nationwide.

The recent HIV / Hepatitis scare in Las Vegas affected over 40,000 patients of the Endoscopy Center of southern Nevada. This isn't even enough anymore to really shock our jaded, health-services deprived nation. It would be unheard of in a state such as Canada that a business executive would have to step up to the plate to help victims of the gross negligence committed in cases such as these.

There are many other scattered moments of token contributions by various individuals, such as last years' $27.5 million contribution to Stanford hospital's emergency room by Marc Andreessen, or last months' $2 million donation to a London children's hospital by Johnny Depp.

We owe a debt of gratitude to individuals such as Marc Andreessen, Johnny Depp, and Scott Gostyla, who are willing to forego easy profits to help make a difference by offering testing services to the victims of this latest scandal.

But, why is it that we have only some private individuals and philanthropist foundations to bring us some of the social services that we should expect our government to provide for us? We must continue to applaud and support the efforts of those who are willing to sacrifice to make a difference in the lives and health of our brothers and sisters.