alt Hacker Newsthe overutilization story is what explains this, you cannot simply walk into Switzerland and say "I want an MRI here is my $138", but that is essentially what you can do (delta a bit of doctor shopping) in the US. there also is a lot of bad price transparency in the US so the listed price is not the price ended up paying, again this is due to the problem I identified above about shielding costs.
When's the last time you tried that here in the US?
It's like when people claim that other countries have worse medical systems because they have to wait, as if my friend didn't just wait 2 months for a simple injection recently, and my mom isn't waiting 2 weeks for an MRI after a stroke.
The vast majority of people who insist we have the greatest healthcare don't even go to the doctor's regularly. Because they were raised in a system where going to the doctor is something you have to weigh the cost of! We have worse medical outcomes simply because people wait until a cheap situation turns into a shitty and painful and expensive situation.