It's free in Australia.
Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
51–60 of 223 posts
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#52I once had to have a CAT scan done. I was really scared. I asked how much it would cost. No one was able to tell me! I was told the price would be negotiated with my health-care provider, if they opted to cover the procedure. How can there be competition when no-one can give you the price of the procedure? Seriously WTF.
This is because no one is quite sure what it should cost. Literally. The hospital will try and charge whatever wild number they can get away with, and the insurance company will negotiate it down to whatever they feel they're willing to pay.
My wife is a nurse and has seen this play out multiple times with patients and their families. Just to give you an idea of how disconnected the price is from logical factors, consider this - If the hospital bills the insurance company they might charge $1000 for the scan. If they bill you directly, (always after you've had the procedure of course), you will be charge much much more, say $3000.
Why? Because it's next to impossible for you as an individual impossible to negotiate the price before hand. (How would you know what a fair price is? And are you really go to say no to a procedure that might be critical for your health?)
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#53High health care spending is yet another way the US subsidizes other countries. From the article: "This is a good deal for residents of other countries, as our high spending makes medical innovations more profitable. “We end up with the benefits of your investment,” Sackville says. “You’re subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research.” In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation…
"In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation or drugs coming from anywhere other than the US?" Of course there is plenty of good medical stuff coming from many countries other than the USA. The market for medical care world wide is way larger outside the USA too. Finally, much medical research is multi national and collaborative.
A fact I find distressing is that the poster is largely correct. Somewhere around 70% of biomedical R&D is done in the US, the utter dominance of the US in this market is not controversial. Most of the rest is done in Asia. The biomedical R&D done in Europe is rapidly approaching a rounding error. I, for one, do not like the fact that the entire world is dependent on the biomedical R&D of US companies. Yet that is the current state of affairs. And the private companies in the US spend money on this research that dwarfs what all but a few countries spend.
I wish more people would acknowledge this reality. I like biomedical technology advancement. Most of it is developed in the US because it is the one of the few countries that can absorb the cost of the R&D. If the US stops doing it, who is going to pick it up? There is ample evidence that the answer is "a little bit in Asia and nowhere else". That should be frightening to people. Biomedical R&D is important.
Ignore for the moment that the US healthcare system is a wreck. The fact remains that the majority of biomedical advances come out of the US because it is the only country where people absorb the R&D cost. If Europe was pulling its weight with biomedical R&D it would be one thing but in practice it is producing so little in that regard that it is kind of shameful. If we eliminate US biomedical R&D by eliminating their ability to recover costs, who picks up the slack? There are no easy answers.
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#54Can't believe they didn't even mention the Monopoly Protection Certificate racket run by the government in many states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need And never mind the huge monopoly granted to AMA certified physicians, in terms of providing medical care. Of course those guys have a huge incentive to keep as many people out of the physician pool as possible. We certainly couldn't allow competition,…
The labor costs would vary from country to country. The article questions the price of a service performed by machine (that supposedly differs very little from country to country).
So why doesn't the U.S. allow doctors to immigrate to this country? The median American MD makes $143K; I'm sure that plenty of foreign doctors would love to come here and make half that.
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#55The US has inexpensive MRIs as well. This nationwide chain provides MRIs as low as $335 depending on the state. http://a2zimaging.com/ No insurance accepted, no payment plans. Those cost money. Just charges the cost.
In Florida, you can get an MRI plus a prescription written and filled for Oxycontin at a "Pain Management" clinic for less than $500[1].
[1] Vanguard documentary "Oxycontin Express": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DHMqHFSB8#t=1250s
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#56I once had to have a CAT scan done. I was really scared. I asked how much it would cost. No one was able to tell me! I was told the price would be negotiated with my health-care provider, if they opted to cover the procedure. How can there be competition when no-one can give you the price of the procedure? Seriously WTF.
This is because no one is quite sure what it should cost. Literally. The hospital will try and charge whatever wild number they can get away with, and the insurance company will negotiate it down to whatever they feel they're willing to pay. My wife is a nurse and has seen this play out multiple times with patients and their families. Just to give you an idea of how disconnected the price is from logical factors, con…
I have never been inclined to additional government regulation. I think it is bad for society in so many ways. But when it comes to the Medical industry I am not so sure.
I wish there were a law that Hospitals have to be able to quote the price of any procedure within a few hours after the patient asks for it.
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation or drugs coming from anywhere other than the US?" Of course there is plenty of good medical stuff coming from many countries other than the USA. The market for medical care world wide is way larger outside the USA too. Finally, much medical research is multi national and collaborative.
A fact I find distressing is that the poster is largely correct. Somewhere around 70% of biomedical R&D is done in the US, the utter dominance of the US in this market is not controversial. Most of the rest is done in Asia. The biomedical R&D done in Europe is rapidly approaching a rounding error. I, for one, do not like the fact that the entire world is dependent on the biomedical R&D of US companies. Yet that is th…
Bullshit. Show me where you get this 70% figure from? Are you talking about spending or results? I think you pulled it out of your arse, but would love to know. What I found was, European r&d spending is close to what the USA spends. Individual countries spend more as a percentage of GDP than USA. World wide, USA does not appear to be spending anywhere close to 70% of the total on medical r&d.
* 2011 Nobel prize for medicine went to an international crew (2 from europe, 1 USA)
* 2010 Nobel prize for medicine went to a British man.
* 2009 2 women from the USA, and one man from UK.
* 2008 1 german man, 1 french woman, 1 french man.
Anyway, medical care isn't just about what drugs multi national companies produce (with much funding from Asia and actual research done in Asia and sales done in USA+worldwide). It includes things like reducing obesity, stopping people smoking in bars, and providing good medical care for all people - which reduces sickness spreading. It does take research, and development to figure these things out and implement them on a social level successfully. Many of these things are classed as social science, and not included in R&D in many places. They can't even get R&D funding for this stuff in some places because it is not real science apparently.
Tax credits for r&d also distort the real costs. The UK gives 225% r&d tax credits, and Australia gives 175% tax credits of the cost now(USA has them too, but lower). This means you make money purely from just doing the R&D without worrying about the results.
btw, the USA is massively in debt, and over 22% of US companies being foreign controlled. So even if the US companies were contributing that much R&D, shouldn't that proportion be attributed somewhat to other countries? With all the funding into the USA also coming from other countries, shouldn't some of that be counted towards the other countries? Shouldn't the fact that lots of the workers in R&D labs for US companies have been outsourced to other countries count towards those countries?
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#58Because in USA the business part of health is more important than the health part.
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#59High health care spending is yet another way the US subsidizes other countries. From the article: "This is a good deal for residents of other countries, as our high spending makes medical innovations more profitable. “We end up with the benefits of your investment,” Sackville says. “You’re subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research.” In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation…
The article goes on to say that this "subsidy" is small compared to what Americans pay extra.
If you believe the article, you'd have to consider most of the extra cost an ideology tax "subsidising" profits in the health care industry.
Americans have decided that subsidising home ownership is worth more than subsidising health care. Other countries do it the other way around.
Re: Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation or drugs coming from anywhere other than the US?" Of course there is plenty of good medical stuff coming from many countries other than the USA. The market for medical care world wide is way larger outside the USA too. Finally, much medical research is multi national and collaborative.
A fact I find distressing is that the poster is largely correct. Somewhere around 70% of biomedical R&D is done in the US, the utter dominance of the US in this market is not controversial. Most of the rest is done in Asia. The biomedical R&D done in Europe is rapidly approaching a rounding error. I, for one, do not like the fact that the entire world is dependent on the biomedical R&D of US companies. Yet that is th…
the entire world is dependent on the biomedical R&D of US companies
Inasmuch as it is possible for companies of this size to be from any one particularly country, large American pharmaceutical companies spent $27bn on R&D in 2009, while European ones spent €28.5bn (i.e. 40% more at today's exchange rate.)
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharmaceutical_companie...