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Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#111

Post by ktizo »

shingen wrote: post #91

Want to get our costs down to competitive levels? 85% of all healthcare costs in America are for those over the age of 65. America has the leading health care system for the elderly. We pay for 80 year olds to have surgeries that they can't get in Canada or France. Nobody wants to talk about it though, because it's not a nice thing to say, that grandma is buying six extra months at a price of a million in treatment.…

If the US has the leading healthcare for the elderly in the world, how come it comes 36th in terms of life expectancy?

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#112

Post by ktizo »

cpeterso wrote: post #74

Not only do Americans spend more per-capita on health care than Canadians, the American government spends more per-capita on health care than the Canadian government. And yet Americans still need private medical insurance. And depending on how you count, more than 60% of American bankruptcies are for unpaid medical bills and about 78% of those people had medical insurance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_…

If you combine the money spent on state and federal health programs, the US government spends more per person on what people label 'socialised healthcare' than the UK does as well.

Also, last time I checked the numbers on this was towards the end of Bush's presidency, so this is not a recent development.

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#113

Post by ck2 »

Because if it was $280 in America the insurance ceos, investors, doctors and administrators would not be able to buy their second vacation homes.

As long as healthcare is a profit center, you will only have the right to die quietly if you cannot afford it in America.

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#114

Post by adrianN »

ktizo wrote: post #111
shingen wrote: post #91

Want to get our costs down to competitive levels? 85% of all healthcare costs in America are for those over the age of 65. America has the leading health care system for the elderly. We pay for 80 year olds to have surgeries that they can't get in Canada or France. Nobody wants to talk about it though, because it's not a nice thing to say, that grandma is buying six extra months at a price of a million in treatment.…

If the US has the leading healthcare for the elderly in the world, how come it comes 36th in terms of life expectancy?

Because healthcare is but one of a zillion factors that influence life expectancy?

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#116

Post by shingen »

ktizo wrote: post #111
shingen wrote: post #91

Want to get our costs down to competitive levels? 85% of all healthcare costs in America are for those over the age of 65. America has the leading health care system for the elderly. We pay for 80 year olds to have surgeries that they can't get in Canada or France. Nobody wants to talk about it though, because it's not a nice thing to say, that grandma is buying six extra months at a price of a million in treatment.…

If the US has the leading healthcare for the elderly in the world, how come it comes 36th in terms of life expectancy?

Because we're also the fattest and least healthy (diet & exercise) of the nations with high per capita income and moderately high life expectancy.

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#117

Post by ktizo »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #109
Nitramp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all of these countries have in common is that they have a strong entity negotiating prices on behalf of the patients, drastically lowering the price, and to a varying degrees also dictating what treatment is appropriate. It'd be really nice if health care could work like a regular market, but evidence and intuition suggest it simply doesn't. As others have commented, people don't comparison shop even if…

I think what all of these countries have in common is that they have a strong entity negotiating prices on behalf of the patients, drastically lowering the price, and to a varying degrees also dictating what treatment is appropriate. The US has these entities too - they are called "insurance companies". As others have commented, people don't comparison shop even if they could. This is simply false. People with low de…

So you are saying that US insurance companies are dramatically lowering the prices.

If so, then compared to what exactly?

The US has some of the highest costs per treatment of just about anywhere in the world, so if the insurance companies are dramatically lowering prices, then the only conclusion I can draw is that the US healthcare providers must be powering all their equipment by burning money for fuel or something.

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#119

Post by shingen »

ck2 wrote: post #113

Because if it was $280 in America the insurance ceos, investors, doctors and administrators would not be able to buy their second vacation homes. As long as healthcare is a profit center, you will only have the right to die quietly if you cannot afford it in America.

It's a profit center whether you like it or not, with or without the government. With the government the profit goes into the bureaucracy.

The medicare + medicaid system has shown itself to be an extreme profit center for government employees and the bureaucracy. They take home massive sums in profit: wages and pensions.

The government doesn't make the system more efficient by reducing profit from the equation. They reduce cost by reducing care options, reducing salaries for healthcare workers, and rationing. For example, nurses in America make 50% more than nurses in Germany. Socialized medicine will decimate that pay variance.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/professionalnurse.shtml

There's nothing on earth more wasteful than government when it comes to spending money. Just ask the US government system (fed+state+local), it's a $7 trillion per year profit system, that flows directly into the hands of millions of employees that make on average $100k per year in wages + benefits, with that pay package doubling in size in just the last ten years, while the economy flat lined.

Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France

#120

Post by mikeash »

ktizo wrote: post #117
yummyfajitas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all of these countries have in common is that they have a strong entity negotiating prices on behalf of the patients, drastically lowering the price, and to a varying degrees also dictating what treatment is appropriate. The US has these entities too - they are called "insurance companies". As others have commented, people don't comparison shop even if they could. This is simply false. People with low de…

So you are saying that US insurance companies are dramatically lowering the prices. If so, then compared to what exactly? The US has some of the highest costs per treatment of just about anywhere in the world, so if the insurance companies are dramatically lowering prices, then the only conclusion I can draw is that the US healthcare providers must be powering all their equipment by burning money for fuel or somethin…

The premiums set by American insurance companies will be largely driven by the cost of the services they provide. If they get providers to lower costs, then insurance premiums will decrease across the board, both for that company and their competitors. They can negotiate small discounts in their own individual favor, but large measures that truly cut costs and not just prices will impact everyone. As such, there's no real reason for insurance companies to negotiate for lower costs, since competition will ensure that their premiums decrease by a similar amount and they don't make any more money. Since demand for health care is pretty inelastic, they won't gain substantially more custom by lowering prices, thus they have no reason to try to substantially cut costs..
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