>>Fifteen years ago I was sitting in a room with an illusion of a CAT scanner in our local hospital. And mind you, back then we were under Sloba's soft dictatorship and mostly under all kinds of sanctions.

Interesting article:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/technology-helps-drive-high-cost-us-healthcare

“It is a common assumption that Americans get more healthcare services than people in other countries, but in fact we do not go to the doctor or the hospital as often,” said Squires. “The higher prices we pay for healthcare and perhaps our greater use of expensive technology are the more likely explanations for high health spending in the U.S. Unfortunately, we do not seem to get better quality for this higher spending.”

The article mentions the inexpensive Japanese model: they have one of those dreaded universally funded schemes via a co-pay arrangement. Japanese utilization of healthcare is very high- e.g. four times as many hospital visits as your average American and twice as many CT scans, but still their costs are far lower.

One key element is that the government sets low prices for pharmaceuticals and technology, causing manufacturers to put on their thinking caps and come up with innovative inexpensive solutions. As a result, Japan is teeming with MRI and CT scanners but they still spend less than everybody else. I will leave it to conspiracy theorists to deduce why this experience never seems to receive prominent attention when people discuss healthcare funding. ;-)