Hacker News Reader

> Doesn’t competition push down the price of [MRIs in the US]?

Oh, you sweet, innocent babe.

Praise your lucky stars for every single day that you don't have to deal with our "health care" system.

The US healthcare system isn’t really a very good model of market competition.

on the contrary (and to your implied point, if i'm not mistaken), it's more like a cartel bent on extracting the most value out of the "consumer"...

Oh yeah, it's working very well, for the shareholders.

The US has this thing in some states called "certificates of need". People who support the US market driven healthcare will say that interferences like CoN distort the market and prevent it working properly.

I'm with Kenneth Arrow[1], markets for healthcare don't work, can never be made to work.

[1] 'Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care - 1963'

I agree. In England we've seen a lot of waste and harm caused by our weird markets, and we're moving away from them.

The US imposes limits of practitioners to keep income high.