Is that a good thing or a bad thing? MRI machines are expensive, but very useful for certain conditions and with zero radiation exposure. We see a lot of affluent Canadians coming to the USA as medical tourists for imaging procedures and elective surgery due to long queues at home.
It's an indicator. By many accounts, the US drastically overuses imaging. For instance: it's not unlikely that a patient presenting with persistent back pain will be imaged quickly in the US. That imaging service is itself expensive and a cost driver, but far worse are the procedures the imaging results drive, most of which wouldn't be prescribed over the border in Canada. We do not on the whole get better results for back pain here!
Another example, though with a less comical indicator than the MRI thing: at least up until recently, hernia repairs in Europe were all inpatient procedures. The US innovated on laparoscopic hernia repair that's done outpatient. This is by itself a very good thing! But the knock-on result is that the US now delivers way more hernia repairs; we do medically unnecessary hernia repair because we made it so easy to do.
None of these are my insights; they're just things you learn about if you read and listen to podcasts about the problems with our health care economics.
