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Comment by Vivtek | Hacker News Reader

I've heard this before. Do you think that Germans or the French end users care about the price? No - they're insured far better than any American without a (D) or (R) after their name. They just _go to the doctor when they're sick_. Period.

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So France and Germany have some non-price rationing mechanism. Whatever mechanism they have, it causes them to half less than half as many MRI's (per capita) than the US.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/811...

MRIs in Germany (or at least my part of it) tend to be relatively rare and booked almost completely full, because with the prices the way they are, they're not profitable unless they're utilized as much as physically possible. There's therefore usually a waiting period of a few days for a non-emergency MRI, which tends to make them a less attractive option for doctors and patients than they might be if they were instantly available. On top of that, they're still relatively pricy compared to other diagnostic procedures, and in Germany, a doctor or hospital who prescribes too many expensive procedures may get personally stuck with the cost, instead of being able to pass them on to the patient or insurer.

Just how many of those MRIs in the US are done without insurance or medicare - ie, are subjected to price rationing mechanisms?

Moreover, in a system like the US health care the "average" isn't very meaningful, because if you and I have a sore knee, and you get 2 MRIs per year, and I get none, well...

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