Depending upon the procedure, I think I'd want robotic surgery too, if it were available. As far as the cost goes, until they enter greater use and more and more procedures can be adapted to their use, the amortization costs will be steep per procedure.
Back when I was working in the ER, CAT Scan machines were brand new technology. You actually had to have permission from the federal government to have one installed in your hospital because they were still a rare resource, and the feds wanted to make sure that they were strategically allocated around the country so that everyone would be able to access one if necessary. The hospital I worked for—Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California—specialized in neurosurgery and thoracic surgery, and was a level 1 trauma center, so we had a CAT Scanner early on, and not too long afterwards, we also had one of the first MRI machines in the country. Nowadays, you can't hardly swing a dead cat without hitting an office that has its own CAT and MRI scanners. Consequently, the price of a scan can be negotiated downward for cash. But I don't think we're there yet with robotic machines.
