It's going to vary widely based on income, savings, location, value of the snake, prognosis, etc.

Case in point - I have a 26 year old retired show horse. While he's healthy enough for his age, if he needed colic surgery he wouldn't get it, he would be euthanized as performing any kind of surgery on a horse that age is extremely risky, never mind the expense ($8000-10,000). If he were 20 years younger he would get the surgery.

So, with ball pythons you have everything from people asking how to most cheaply keep and feed their newly-acquired normal and begging for home remedies when an RI shows up because they can't pay a vet until the next paycheck, up through people buying breeding snakes that cost more than some of us make in a year. Guess which snake is going to the vet, and which isn't?